I’ve a confession to make.
I neglect about Jesus for a few week or so yearly in the course of the Easter season. It is by no means intentional, but it surely occurs extra usually than I would wish to admit.
I feel it is partly as a result of I are likely to go all out for Lent as of late. I dedicated to doing a number of further issues in the course of the 40 days as a strategy to reconnect and renew my relationship with Jesus. Some years, like this, I carry rather a lot, and so once I lastly attain Easter morning, I let myself breathe a sigh of reduction and launch all my commitments directly in joyful response to my pal who as soon as died and now lives within the resurrection.
This Lent, I wrote a sequence of reflections for the Central and Southern Jesuit Provinces. As I entered into the expertise of writing the sequence, “Leaning on Our Beloved,” I discovered myself extra deeply concerned than ever with the fervour and dying of Jesus. The journey was extra intense than I assumed it could be, however in its depth, I had many moments of deep and significant reference to God who loves me, it doesn’t matter what.
Whereas writing my final reflection for the sequence simply earlier than Holy Week, I felt a second of intense need to carry on to the connection I had made. However then, once I completed all of it and eventually pressed ship, I discovered myself respiratory a sigh of reduction. I used to be grateful for the conclusion of Jesus’ ardour and dying and was prepared for the enjoyment of the resurrection. I paused and thanked Jesus for 40 days of intense focus and thought, after which I closed my pc and walked away.
Reflecting on that second now, in the course of the Easter season, I notice how shortly I left my pal behind. Right here Jesus and I walked collectively by way of this intense journey the place Jesus allowed me to study extra about him and I used to be capable of uncover new components of myself within the context of our growing friendship. After which I completed it, as if I had been writing in his postgraduate yearbook: “Thanks for the trip! See you on the reunion, Jesus!”
As I interact extra with non secular follow by way of my graduate work this yr, I acknowledge that St. Ignatius intentionally didn’t finish with the fervour and dying of Jesus. He was additionally deliberate to not finish merely with a fast reflection on Easter Sunday. Ignatius, in reality, devoted a whole week of workout routines to exploring our relationship with Jesus after In his resurrection, Jesus is current with us right here and now. Within the fourth week, we’re invited to a extra complete contemplation of God’s love in order that we are able to take the insights gained within the train and decide how they may have an effect on our every day lives transferring ahead.
So, despite the fact that I began this Easter season by closing the e book on my journey with Jesus for the yr, I am now opening it once more to see what it is wish to additional develop this relationship with the resurrected Jesus, who lives right here. my life as we speak
I am spending some intentional time reflecting on the 4 attributes of God that target the fourth week of the Meditations on Attaining God’s Love non secular follow. As Jim Manney writes Ignatian Spirituality A to Z, “The Contemplation focuses on 4 attributes of God: His kindness to every of us individually; His presence in all issues; His energetic exercise on this planet; and the unceasing bestowal of His blessings and items.”
I’m hoping that spending intentional time reflecting on these 4 attributes of God in the course of the Easter season will assist me develop in my relationship with Jesus, who needs friendship with me all the times of my life. I am hoping it should assist me proceed the journey I began throughout Lent, which is the journey of leaning into my beloved.
Will you be part of me on this journey?
Photograph by Shera Banerjee on Pexels.
