Darkness to light: An intimate journey with Jesus
In this special Lenten series of daily meditations, a guest daily prayers writer looks to the Gospel stories for answers to the questions many of us ask when faced with difficult times.
In recent months my shaky faith has been once again disturbed. For one thing, it is getting too difficult to find Jesus in the culture of my Church – I wish it were not so – though I can still glimpse Jesus in the goodness of the faithful. For another thing, a loved one, a parent in a young family, has been diagnosed with an aggressive illness for which there is no cure. My Lenten journey starts in this darkness, with the smallest glimmer of hope.
These Lenten reflections are not meant to be instructions. They are personal notes from a personal journey. I wanted to get closer to Jesus. I wanted to know Jesus as Mary of Bethany and Mary of Magdala and Simon Peter and John the son of Zebedee knew him: a real person in real life, close, caring, much loved and much loving. I wanted to be nearer to Jesus, because Jesus is the sole centre of my life.
My mantra came from the prayer attributed to St Richard of Chichester:
Most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother,
may I know you more clearly,
love you more dearly,
and follow you more nearly, day by day.
These notes are connected together by excerpts from the Gospel readings for each day of Lent. The longer entries – for Ash Wednesday and the Sundays – reflect on the context of the Gospels and set themes for the ensuing days. It may help to read some of these notes in clusters as well as for individual days.
I hope these notes help the readers to make their own way to Easter. I hope these notes help the readers feel Jesus’ love and find his infinite light in the deepest darkness.
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