Turning Away and Embracing
Memorial of St. Frances of Rome
Lent is a season commonly associated with renunciation: we give some things up and turn away from others. But Lent is also a time of building: we embrace new things. Giving up chocolate or that late-night pizza or burrito are forms of fasting. However, as a spiritual discipline, fasting isn’t an end in itself. It empties us of something that may be comforting even as it is destructive in order to fill us with something new.
Our readings today give us a menu of things that we should turn away from and others we should embrace. They tell us to turn away from sin, judging and condemning others. They call us to embrace mercy, giving and forgiveness.
What might this look like? We all experience difficulties from time to time in our relationships. Our tendencies in the face of such conflicts are toward fight or flight. We try to be the victor or we retreat into something that is familiar and safe. Judging and condemning others gives us permission to vanquish our adversaries or to avoid them and cut them off.
But conflicts can also transform us and help us to grow. Mercy helps us to see the issue at hand, forgiveness opens our hearts to accept another as they are, and giving both empties us of ourselves and affirms our acceptance of God’s grace.
St. Frances of Rome was a wife (widow) and mother. She was of the noble class but was extraordinarily generous with what God had given her, even in the midst of a great famine and plague that took the life of her son. With her sister-in-law, a kindred spirit, she founded a Benedictine community dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor. In letting go of some things, she opened inner space for God to work on her and through her. She’s a great example for us. –jc
Notes from a Journey - Capuchin Friar John Celichowski