Father Sanchez' Challenge

“To everything there is a season,” wrote the grim-toned author of Ecclesiastes. Lent has passed, Easter has come, the time to sing Alleluias.

This past Lent I spent in the desert—and a good many friends accompanied me. I followed the abbas and ammas into to fiery furnace of desert piety, even if from a distance. I lived with them through their words. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers was my companion for the season; I spent three hours a day or more reading the old texts, being challenged by their wisdom and shamed by their courage. I read their sayings to discover gems for meditation—yours and mine.

In doing so, I faced a daily dilemma. Some of what they had to say was too much for me—so blunt the words stung, so insightful they sometimes burned because their words were too profound and I didn’t (still don’t) have the courage to follow where they lead. “What does the world have to offer you in place of God?” one of the desert fathers asked his disciples. “To see the answer go and look at a corpse.” Despite its truth, it’s not the sort of thing I wanted to share as a Lenten meditation with friends who, like me, have to live in the world.

My great and good friend, Fr Robert Sanchez, wrote me a week or so after Easter saying, “I was hoping you’d continue your Lenten meditations with a series for Eastertide.” Father knows me very well, and I’m sure he was pricking at my conscience, figuring I’d already thought of it—and was too lazy. He’s too polite to say so, but I know what he was thinking.

He was right, I’d thought of it and even drawn up a little plan. But as I considered it, I felt daunted by the project, though unsure as to why.
It wasn’t until a few days later I realized my reluctance.

C S Lewis, author of the justly-praised Screwtape Letters, was asked by an admirer if he ever considered writing a sequel. You may remember Screwtape took the form of a series of letters written by an old, experienced devil to a newly-appointed tempter, whose job it was to ensure the damnation of his human “client.” Screwtape is a delightfully fun book to read, but it holds a mirror before each reader, giving devastating insights into the weaknesses each of us carry in our souls like cancer in our bodies.

Lewis’ admirer asked him about a sequel from the other side: a series of letters from an experienced angel to a neophyte “guardian.” “But even if a man—and it would have to be a far better man than I—could scale the spiritual heights required,” Lewis answered, “how does one do it? Every sentence would have to smell of Heaven.”

My answer to Father Sanchez is not much different. I can write easily about temptation and sin; that’s a daily part of my life. Heaven is something for which I long, but of it I have only the most fleeting and imperfect glimpses. Lent is the season my natural habitat—not of inclination (that would be Christmas)—but of spiritual need.

But as cooling breezes soften a hot summer’s day, Easter comes. It’s not just a reminder of a past Sacred Day but a promise of Good Things to Come. And here’s the real problem. It’s not so hard to regret our sins—even those of us who don’t believe in such a thing as sin know how to regret our past—but how do we rejoice? We know how to fast, but how do we feast? We’ve kept the forty days of Lent, how do we celebrate the fifty days of Paschaltide?

I have some ideas—but I’ll let them percolate a bit. Perhaps something will have brewed by next Easter and I’ll be up to Fr Sanchez’ challenge. For now, I wish each of you Joy—such as this naughty world cannot give.