Fr. Tim's CornerFebruary 17, 2010
Dear Parishioners, My confessor at the Monastery was a monk named Father Mark who has lived monastic life for over sixty years. Thirty of those years have been lived as a hermit in the woods beyond the Abbey. Through his wisdom, his humanness and transparency I gained much and encountered something of God. Once, while confessing my sins to him and talking out the struggles of my own life, he quoted the 13th century medieval mystic St. Gertrude who, during prayer, heard Christ say to her these words: Come to me empty and I will fill you. I’ve remembered those words ever since and like to imagine Christ speaking them to me even now: Come to me empty and I will fill you. In the Gospel this First Sunday in Lent, Jesus is tempted by the devil. And he is hungry, for “He ate nothing during those days.” In the face of such hunger, everything seems to be thrown into question as the devil says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God…” Eventually, this happens to us whenever confronted by the vicissitudes of life and what seems so beyond us. Everything can be thrown into question as we want for something more. Vainly, we try and fill this hunger in ways that cannot satisfy and leave us feeling depleted and famished more than ever. Yet Jesus, refusing to succumb to the wiles of the devil by ‘feeding’ the hunger, teaches us an invaluable lesson we all must learn: that only the presence and power of God satiates. Do we believe it? This Lent, may we empty ourselves in ways that help us sense more than ever our hunger for God.
Father Tim Clark View Past Messages:
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