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Homily of Fr. Peter Pojol, S.J. at Cenacle Retreat House on September 14th, 2019 (Saturday) I think it may be safe to say that everyone has had an experience of recoiling at something horrible, of being so distressed by something that it makes us turn away in order to, momentarily at least, block out whatever evil confronts us. It could be the replay of that crucial helmet-and-glove catch by David Tyree, if you’re a New England Patriots fan. It could be a scene of extreme violence, or of a loved one suffering in sickness. It could be a reminder of anything depressing, or anything frightening, anything that threatens life, anything that seems to assert the victory of death, of the anti-life. Have you ever, in such an instance, fought against your instinct to turn away and to forget, and instead steeled your resolve to face that evil squarely and not let it determine your choices or your life, not let it have the last word? If you have, you may have experienced the power of paradoxically drawing life from death, of gaining strength from fear. The story of Moses and the Israelites in our first reading from the book of Numbers illustrates how God saved them from their deaths precisely by having them confront the cause of their death. I must admit that it is a mysterious account written with many of the mythical elements of story-telling and faith proclaiming that was standard practice at that time. But what we can glean from the story is that the Israelites were dying in the desert, whether literally or figuratively from snake bites, and recognizing their fault for turning against God in their distress, they sought the forgiveness and help of God. What is interesting in this account is the way God saved them. Rather than introducing something different to counter the serpents, God instructed Moses to make an image of the serpent, and to tell the people to look at this image, a stark reminder of their ills. Rather than giving them something to take their attention away from the source of their death and destruction, God as it were made them stare death in the eye and in this way enabled them to defeat death and to have life. There is something to be said about gazing on evil that threatens to envelope and overwhelm us. The wisdom of staring death in the eye is not simply to desensitize us or to make us numb, which is what seems to drive some trends in popular media and culture. For even when we have become desensitized and numb, we can still die, just as we can die running away from death. Rather, the wisdom of gazing right at death is to see what we had not seen before: that is, the power of God that surpasses death and evil—not just death and evil in the abstract, but this death and this evil that taunts me; and not just the power of God in general, but the unrelenting power of this God who loves me persistently no matter how many times I have foresaken him. We may have become desensitized to the paradox of bannering the very cause of death as the promise of deliverance, from the sheer repeated exposure to the image. In fact, one of the universal symbols of medicine derives, I think, from the Old Testament story we just heard: the image of a serpent on a pole, especially as it is being carried by the figure of the greek god Mercury symbolizing the speedy delivery of cure. The other ubiquitous paradoxical symbol of cure and life, whose power to jolt us into recognizing the profound truth of “life through death” is easy to lose, is the cross of Jesus Christ, the exaltation of which we celebrate today. It is easy to forget the impact of raising high the symbol of the standard instrument of torture and death that was the very same one used to kill the one we proclaim as Messiah and Savior. If Jesus had been executed by an electric chair, we would be adorning all our Churches and altars with it. By exalting the cross, whether by the crucifixes we place prominently in our homes and places of worship, or by the habit of the sign of the cross with which we call upon God to bless us in prayer, we not only remind ourselves of our death and of the death of the one who came to save us, but more importantly, we recommit ourselves to the truth that Jesus exemplified and willingly gave up his life to tell: that God is love and love is the final word, not death, not failure, not evil. By exalting the cross we humbly beg the Lord to help us make our own the saving mystery that plays out from death to life. By living by the sign of the cross, we hope to embrace whatever makes us cringe and cower in fear and in so doing to find God embracing us and leading us from darkness into light. As the evangelist John set down in those immortal words we heard in our gospel today: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”
“What Retreatants Say” is a platform to allow our in-house retreatants share testimonies of their encounters with Jesus, in so enriching our hearts and spirits. We are happy to welcome and receive your “thanksgiving symbol/expression” be it artwork, poetry, story, prayer or reflection (max 1 page). What Retreatants Say
Do you feel a natural connection or a sense of peace in the company of Religious? Do their vocation stories move you? Are you able to recognise the Love of God in your life and a deep desire to want to give yourself more? Can God call us through things that we like? To enter Religious Life, do I really have to give up , enter into a lonely place and “sacrifice” in order to follow God? What if my personality ‘doesn’t fit’? Will I be happy and free to be myself in Religious Life? In this radio interview with Radyo Katipunan 87.9FM, on Jun 11 2019, Sr. Yna Oñate, rc speaks about the gifts of the Cenacle, her vocation discernment process and experience of God’s Goodness that offers her the possibility of giving herself fully as a response to this great love. Currently based in Macau, she lives her religious life and ministry through constant surrendering of self as she accompanies others in human and faith formation. https://www.facebook.com/radyokatipunan/videos/454989105276383/ Interview begins on 7:19
This essay first appeared on print on Pentecost 14 years ago in Sr. Cecille’s column “Solid Places” in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine. ONE of the simple joys of “maidenhood” is the occasional chance to visit the family and babysit one’s little nieces and nephews. The longing makes one receptive to what these kids have to teach us faded and jaded grown-ups, with the added bonus that when their angelic dispositions expire and they turn cranky, one can always return them to their parents without qualm or conscience. (My harried sister, taking back a squirming toddler in her arms, once lamented: “I wish they came with batteries!”) I was babysitting my 10-month-old niece, who was at that climbing and exploring stage when I was momentarily distracted. Before I knew it, she had discovered the marvels of the dining table’s underbelly, and was now examining the intricacies of our dog’s fur. Our dog, a gentle and affectionate German Shepherd, suffered the indignity with calm resignation. I hastily plucked the sticky-fingered pint-sized explorer and carried her off to the kitchen sink to wash her hands. I held her in front of me, and seated her on the rim of the sink with her feet on its cool surface. As I held her tiny hands under the tap and turned the faucet on, she blinked in surprise and slowly turned to look at me, her eyes big as saucers, lips half parted, with the most beautiful expression on her face. It was pure rapture. Rapture filled her entire being, and it took my breath away. The memory of my baby niece’s rapturous face lingered with me for several days, and brought me to the birthday of the Church which we celebrated last Sunday. Perhaps one way of reflecting upon the feast of Pentecost, when the Spirit came upon the disciples and Mary in the Cenacle (which we Catholics commemorate as the third glorious mystery of the rosary), is to consider this experience of rapture. Three points: First, rapture means being awakened by glory into wondrous joy. From the drudgery of mere existence, we wake up to the stunning truth that, in the words of the poet-priest Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” Perhaps this is why they call childhood “the wonder years”——children have not lost their innocence, which is actually an innate sense of God’s goodness permeating the world, waiting to be discovered. The journey into faith involves the same awakening: the God who came, “pitched his tent among us”, suffered, died and rose again, and will stay with us forever. Life, as we knew it, is turned gloriously upside down, inside out, and made new. Second, rapture is not just surprise at some pleasant discovery. The glorious awakening by which rapture bursts upon us leads to an overflowing, joyous gratitude. It is sheer gift marked by unbelievable abundance. The disciples at Pentecost were filled with the Holy Spirit, impelling them to proclaim and bear witness to what they had experienced. So, too, shall we, when we find the grace to live life gratefully, and therefore, joyfully and passionately. Lastly, when my little niece turned to me with her rapturous smile, she did not (and could not) use words. Nor did I need any: I spontaneously responded with delight at her delight, drawn irresistibly into her joy. Perhaps that is why the disciples could speak different tongues and yet be understood by the people around them. Rapture needs no translation. Joseph Campbell, the famous anthropologist who spent his whole life studying the wisdom of the world’s cultures, was once asked what he thought people looked for in life. He surprised his interviewer by saying that, in his opinion, people were not really after the meaning of life. He said, instead: “I think that what we’re seeking is an expression of being alive. . . so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” Pentecost is about awakening to the glory and gratitude of a God who restores and sustains us into life in abundance. Live the rapture.
Homily for Sr. Guia’s Funeral on May 6, 2019, Quezon City, Philippines, by Fr. Edmundo M. Martinez: .. There are tears in our eyes, but joy in our hearts as we bid goodbye to Sr. Guia. Guia’s work and the work of the Cenacle concern the spiritual life. Self-awareness is the experience of spirit. When we sometimes say, I know what I feel but I cannot express it, we are referring to the experience of being self-aware of ourselves as being angry or puzzled or exuberant, but cannot put it into words. Because the experience itself involves no words, no images, no pictures: it is immediate, it is immaterial, it is spiritual. Now while all who are alive are aware, not everyone is self-aware. I can listen to the stories of the successes of another, see the proofs of that success—the fine clothes, the expensive cars, the magnificent palaces. When I hear and see these things, I am aware of what my senses and imagination perceive. What I may not be self-aware of is that as I hear and see these things, there is within me a complex experience of envy and admiration, jealousy and regret, frustration and despair. So long as I am awake, I am aware of things around me. I am even aware of myself when I talk about myself. But talking about myself is not self- awareness. Self-awareness is the awareness of the subject doing the talking (Bernard Lonergan). When I talk about myself, I am aware of what I am saying. But perhaps I may also be self-aware that I am talking about myself a little too grandly. That shameful experience of lying to build myself up, even as I speak, is self-awareness. To be self-aware is to be aware of myself in the very same moment that I am aware of what I see, or hear, or do. I cannot speak about it, I can only experience it. It cannot be captured by words; it can only be lived. It is immaterial. To be self-aware is to be spirit in the world (Karl Rahner). Now Sr.Guia’s lifetime work is to direct, and guide, and encourage individuals to grow in self-awareness, and indeed to grow in the self-awareness of God who dwells in each one of us. To discover the Father who created us to his own image (Gen 1:27); to know the Son who promised to dwell in us,(John 14: 20);to be familiar with the Spirit who has been given to us by whom we cry, “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15 and 1 John 4:13)—that is the task of spiritual direction to which Sr. Guia dedicated herself. It is to cut through the distractions and vanities of the world to guide the person to the stillness of her self-awareness. The quiet of that self-awareness, that prayerful presence to one’s self, is the favorable condition by which the person may discover the God within who is more intimate to her than she is to herself (St. Augustine); to recognize the Lord, and to become familiar with the ways of the Spirit so that slowly she becomes a new creation and begins to see herself, her life, and her world with the new eyes of faith. These new eyes of faith reveal a beautiful world despite the ugliness of sin, because it is a world being redeemed by the body of Christ; it is a world vibrant with life, because it is animated by the Spirit; it is a world filled with hope in its groaning, because it is heading inexorably towards the kingship of Christ; above all, it is a world in which the person now has a unique and vital role to play, a mission and purpose in life. All the struggles in life, all the strivings and dissatisfactions, all the yearnings and disappointments are now seen in a new perspective: they are our longing for God, they are God leading us to himself. As St. Augustine succinctly put it: “Thou hast made us for thyself; our hearts are restless until it rests in You.” And the more the individual becomes self-aware of God’s presence in her life, the more she gains the freedom of the children of God, and then Sr. Guia’s work recedes to the background, for now it is the Spirit Himself—or Herself–that guides the person, a member fully alive in the body of Christ. To be a spiritual guide that Sr. Guia was is a sanctifying and privileged vocation. Because to be good at it —and Sr. Guia was good at it—requires that one has traveled and continues to travel the road to which one guides the other person. One cannot guide another to holiness without herself being holy. And one can only be holy by making others holy. And so, her work was sanctifying: even as she brought others closer to God, she herself came closer to God. But is also privileged, because as one comes closer to God in self-awareness, one realizes that it is all God’s work, that all is grace. It is the Spirit within that is at work, and one is merely an earthen vessel. And now this earthen vessel has come to its point of obsolescence, and we bid goodbye to Sr. Guia. But this earthen vessel—this corruptible body—has served its purpose well. Just as Christ’s body was the instrument of his total love and obedience to the Father, so also, Guia’s body that we now return to the earth, has been the instrument of her loving God and guiding others to love God. And so we know that Guia’s body now buried corruptible, will rise, like Christ’s body, incorruptible. The life of Guia has been a lifetime of longing for God and of doing his will. If one has longed for God all of one’s life, if one has followed his will through all the twists and turns of life, if one feels privileged to have been chosen to lead others to Him, would there be any hesitation, or
Homily by Fr. Peter Pojol, SJ at Cenacle Retreat House for Easter Vigil on April 20, 2019: Gospel: Lk 24:1-12 The women’s story seemed like nonsense, and the disciples did not believe them. What story? That the body of their dead Master was missing. That what they all witnessed was not yet the end. Could they dare think that against all logic something good can still come out of this? Nonsense! Do you know what else seems like nonsense? That God loves us. Look at our world. Look at our country. Look at your own lives. There are many reasons to despair. But on this night, especially on this night, we allow scripture and liturgy to help us recall the weightier, more consequential reasons why, instead of despair, of dismissing all this as nonsense, we must take after Peter, get up, run to the tomb, bend down, see the burial cloths alone, and go home amazed. We have heard the history of salvation summarized and proclaimed. We have used the powerful symbols of fire against darkness, of water against dryness and lifelessness, of white victory against black evil. I invite you in the coming days and weeks to return to the experience of the liturgies, the stories, of the Paschal Triduum to touch your hearts. For now and the rest of the homily, let me suggest that we listen to words of our Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ, Pope Francis, who writes from the heart, from God’s heart to us. Christ is alive and he wants you to be alive! (Christus Vivit) He is in you, he is with you and he never abandons you. However far you may wander, he is always there, the Risen One. He calls you and he waits for you to return to him and start over again. When you feel you are growing old out of sorrow, resentment or fear, doubt or failure, he will always be there to restore your strength and your hope. (2) This is how Pope Francis begins his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation to Young People and the Entire People of God, entitled Christus Vivit (Christ Lives), which he published March 25 this year. In Chapter 4, Pope Francis lays out the core message that is most appropriate to our Vigil tonight. He does so in three points: God loves you, Christ saves you, and Christ is alive! Let us listen intently to his words, as if they were from God. The very first truth I would tell each of you is this: “God loves you”. It makes no difference whether you have already heard it or not. I want to remind you of it. God loves you. Never doubt this, whatever may happen to you in life. At every moment, you are infinitely loved. (112) God sees in us a beauty that no one else can see: As the Prophet Isaiah writes, “For you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you” (Is 43:4). (114) God does not keep track of your failings and he always helps you learn something even from your mistakes. Because he loves you. Try to keep still for a moment and let yourself feel his love. Try to silence all the noise within, and rest for a second in his loving embrace. (115) The second point: Christ saves you: It is precisely through our problems, frailties and flaws that he wants to write this love story. He embraced the prodigal son, he embraced Peter after his denials, and he always, always, always embraces us after every fall, helping us to rise and get back on our feet. Because the worst fall, and pay attention to this, the worst fall, the one that can ruin our lives, is when we stay down and do not allow ourselves to be helped up. (120) Beloved of the Lord, how valuable must you be if you were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ! Dear [young] people, “you are priceless! You are not up for sale! Please, do not let yourselves be bought. Do not let yourselves be seduced. Do not let yourselves be enslaved…” (122) Keep your eyes fixed on the outstretched arms of Christ crucified, let yourself be saved over and over again. And when you go to confess your sins, believe firmly in his mercy which frees you of your guilt. Contemplate his blood poured out with such great love, and let yourself be cleansed by it. In this way, you can be reborn ever anew. (123) Third point: Christ is alive! We need to keep reminding ourselves of this, because we can risk seeing Jesus Christ simply as a fine model from the distant past, as a memory, as someone who saved us two thousand years ago. But that would be of no use to us: it would leave us unchanged, it would not set us free. The one who fills us with his grace, the one who liberates us, transforms us, heals and consoles us is someone fully alive. He is the Christ, risen from the dead, filled with supernatural life and energy, and robed in boundless light. (124) Because he lives, there can be no doubt that goodness will have the upper hand in your life and that all our struggles will prove worthwhile. If this is the case, we can stop complaining and look to the future, for with him this is always possible. That is the certainty we have. (127) So, three points: God loves you, Christ saves you, and Christ is alive! If in your heart you can learn to appreciate the beauty of this message, if you are willing to encounter the Lord, if you are willing to let him love you and save you, if you can make friends with him and start to talk to him, the living Christ, about the realities of your life, then
The resurrection isn’t simply about getting the message out in the most efficient way – it is about individual transformation, one person at a time. That’s why the risen Jesus took the time to console Magdalene and walk with a couple of discouraged disciples to Emmaus.. appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem, he came back just to appear for Thomas who missed the chance to see him.. Our Lord always deals with us in a very personal way. He knows each of us so well and he understands our deepest desires and he knows what we truly need.
This essay first appeared on print on Easter 14 years ago in Sr. Cecille’s column “Solid Places” in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine. Beatriz is now a lovely, healthy 14 year-old. Joy and sorrow are sisters; they live in the same house. – Macrina Wiederkehr There is a pervasive attitude in our world today, which seeks to deny anything that would remind us of our mortality. We run away from wrinkles and thinning hair with the same fervor we display in trying to escape the more invisible diminishments in our lives. This is most evident in our postmodern pathological denial of the inevitability of suffering and the rightful place of sorrow in life. But if we are to know the depths of joy, if we must truly love (which is our most difficult and ultimate task, according to Rilke), then we must learn to accept the visitations of sorrow. This reminds me of a little story: It was supposed to be just another routine prenatal check-up. The young mother was on her ninth month, only a week till full term. It was her second child too, a much prayed for and long-awaited one. Her eldest daughter, a precocious 6-year-old, had been bugging her parents for a baby sister, and she was finally getting her wish. “Beatriz,” that was the name they had chosen. But the visit turned into confinement: apparently the mother’s body was all primed to deliver, but the baby was not quite ready to come out yet. They had to wait a few more days. The labor and delivery turned out to be a breeze, and she delivered a beautiful baby girl. It was all routine. There were disturbing signs, however. The other nursing mothers in the rooming ward had gushed at how quiet her daughter was, while theirs squalled lustily, but the mother was a little uneasy. Her tiny baby took only a little milk, and would just whimper softly. On the day they were supposed to come home, the pediatrician noticed that little Beatriz was very ruddy, which was disquieting since both her parents were fair-skinned. And so another consultant was called, and soon tests were made. At this point, things unraveled quickly for the bewildered and shocked parents: there was something terribly wrong with their newborn daughter, and the doctors suspected a blood disorder and a viral infection. She was also jaundiced. A blood culture was ordered, and since the hospital did not have the facilities for it, the father had to rush to another hospital to have it done. It was 2 a.m. by this time. Back in the hospital, Beatriz was having convulsions because of her high fever. Her mother remembers the scene well: “It is so terrible for a mother to see her own baby suffer like that, and to be helpless about it. All you could see were doctors and nurses surrounding her, just this moving, frantic wall of white coats and uniforms… l couldn’t see her anymore. It is the most awful feeling in the world, to know your child is in danger and not even SEE her… the memory burned that image forever in my brain.” A different sight greeted the father, when he returned to the hospital. He saw his little daughter, now in the neonatal intensive care unit, with assorted tubes attached to her tiny body, her eyes blindfolded to protect them from the photolight therapy. He took one look at his baby, and broke down and cried. The initial shock and horror at this turn of events gave way to a long, equally painful vigil. The blood culture took five days, and until then (the doctors said), they must wait and pray. Family and friends rushed to the hospital, but there was really little they could do or say. For what words can they speak to make any sense out of the suffering of an innocent baby? And what else can they do but relieve the parents of some of the practical details of a hospital confinement? The weight of a powerless, painful waiting for the fate of their child, and the struggle to find meaning out of the utter senselessness, was theirs alone. They clung to each other, and to their faith, She refused to leave her baby’s side, and when her blood pressure soared and she was banned from the sterile area, she waited outside the door everyday, praying. He sought refuge in the hospital chapel, sometimes falling asleep there, his 6’0″ frame squeezed in the narrow pew, one arm clutching the back of the pew as if it was a lifeline, like a man lost at sea. Only love can understand such words, and only faith can give the courage to see beyond love’s present suffering. When the blood results came back, it was discovered that Beatriz had polycythemia, which means her blood was “too much and too thick.” She needed partial exchange transfusion round the clock. She also had klebsella ozaenae, a viral infection that proved resistant to the antibiotics that she was being given, and so a new round of more powerful drugs was started. The days stretched with an awful, surreal, slow-mo quality: the father would visit her in the morning before he went to work, and her IV would be in her foot, and when he returned in the afternoon, it would be in another part of her body. Her veins were so tiny they kept collapsing. It broke his heart every time. Still, they kept their faith. After one of their baby’s convulsions, the mother wept as she told me what had happened. After a moment, she quietly. painfully said: “Do you know what her name ‘Beatriz’ means? It means ‘Bearer of joy’ I know that even now, she is living up to her name.” Only love can understand such words, and only faith can give the courage to see beyond love’s present suffering. After nearly two weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit, Beatriz was declared
Near the end of my more than three years of intensive psychotherapy, I had a very vivid dream. In that dream, I was in a strange house completely dark and foreboding. I was slowly moving from one room to another, lighting a candle in each room, haunted and terrified by an intense, suffocating loneliness. In therapy, the meaning of the dream gradually unfolded: I was afraid that no matter how much light I can muster, the house of my childhood will forever be empty. Henceforth, I must learn to live with the void. We fill up that void by busyness and noise, by a surfeit of passing pleasures, by a horror vacuii that cuts deep into our very being, such that we cannot name who we are apart from what we do or what we have. Such is our need, such is our fear. It was a painful lesson to learn. I had grown up precisely doing the opposite: filling the void with achievement, in the tragic childish belief that maybe if I do good, I will be loved. And yet in this I am not alone. We all have experienced loss. Heartbreak, suffering, pain, disappointment—even the natural wear and tear of our bodies as we age—all the promise of life inexorably slipping through our trembling fingers, the daily little dyings that foreshadow our last breath. And still we run away: filling that emptiness through various means: achievement, efficiency, popularity, an unending accumulation of lovers, friends, titles, money, fame, the latest gadgets or even facebook likes. We fill up that void by busyness and noise, by a surfeit of passing pleasures, by a horror vacuii that cuts deep into our very being, such that we cannot name who we are apart from what we do or what we have. Such is our need, such is our fear. Thus, in an acutely existential way, we are running on empty, most of our lives. We are just blind to it. Then Lent arrives, with its no nonsense, in-your-face beginning: Ash Wednesday. Nothing can so completely disarm us of our denial than the ashes on our foreheads, and the reminder that we are, and will sooner or later become, dust. And yet, in this rather brusque beginning, we are given unguent for our wounds, and a fallow time of forty days of deep, deep grace, in order to prepare us for the shining truth of Easter. Lent tells us that the only way out is through: through that emptiness, through that pain, through that deep gnawing ache that no person or object or experience can completely assuage. What is this balm of Lent that heals our emptiness? Lent begins with this resounding call from the prophet Joel: “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God.” Lent tells us that the only way out is through: through that emptiness, through that pain, through that deep gnawing ache that no person or object or experience can completely assuage. We must face the truth that we are radically incomplete this side of heaven, and we must therefore rend our hearts and mourn our losses. And yet that is not the whole truth, nor the more important one, in fact. Joel makes it very clear: we are to return to the Lord with all our hearts. Therein lies our balm, therein lies the core of our truth: only God can fill us, only God can bring love and light and joy into the most secret recesses of our hearts. Only God can give us the fullness of life that is our birthright. The journey of Lent marks this return: we sin and run away, God searches for us and brings us home. In this homecoming to God, which finds its summit in the Easter Triduum, we are shown the way. Jesus points out that we are to give alms, to pray and to fast. He tells us that we are to do all these “in secret,” because the Father “sees in secret.” What does this mean? And how can these three help to heal our emptiness? When we open our hearts to God in prayer, we are brought to the truth of our own poverty, of our radical need for God. In a counterintuitive move that could only come from God, almsgiving, praying and fasting heal our emptiness precisely by bringing us face-to-face with the depth of our insufficiency. We open our hands to help another in need, thereby reminding ourselves that we are never too poor to give, and that whatever we give away will never diminish us, because our worth is not found in what we own. When we open our hearts to God in prayer, we are brought to the truth of our own poverty, of our radical need for God. In prayer we receive that deeply felt knowing that, in the memorable words of the Psalmist, “the Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing that I shall want (Ps 23).” When we fast from what we want, when we surrender our needs and desires, be they physical or otherwise, we learn the value of self-transcendence. Self-transcendence is nothing but saying “no” to something desirable and perhaps even good, for the sake of a greater “yes” which is grounded in God. In short, to fast is to stop running after that which satiates us, in order to listen to our deeper longing for God. Finally, Jesus tells us to give alms, to pray and to fast “in secret.” Clearly, there is a lesson in humility here. But perhaps what the Lord desires to deepen in us is also single-heartedness, that purity of intentions that the presence of an audience for all our good work can becloud. When we embrace these practices of self-emptying deprived of other people’s acclamations, we experience the depth of God’s