By PAUL KRAUSE
Every year, Catholics around the world embark on a journey to grow closer to God during Lent. We are fortunate that in this unified love we can depend on the prayers of Catholics the world over. But we are also fortunate that Catholics of the past are with us on this journey too. One of the great treasures of the Church is the communion of the saints. Every Catholic has a Confirmation name, a name taken from one of the great saints down through history. Unfortunately, many of us know little of our saint or even the many great saints that have given so much nourishment to our faith.
In the journey that is Lent, spending time with the saints as a means of drawing closer to God is one of the great opportunities of these 40 days given to us. Instead of putting aside chocolate or Coca Cola as one’s Lenten commitment, now is a chance to read and love with the saints. How often does one say to oneself that they will read Augustine, or Chrysostom, or Faustina when they have the chance but never find that time to do so? Now is the time.
While we are meant to always draw closer to God, the 40 days of Lent are uniquely situated to come closer to God in faith, hope, and love because of the consciousness that surrounds the Lenten calendar. Amid the hustle and bustle of daily life, these 40 days are marked out, set aside, in company with Jesus, to really discern God’s will and draw ever closer to the Love that governs all.
Part of the joy of spending time with the saints is finding the diversity of spirituality the Church has to offer. Intellectual love? There are plenty of saints for that. Charitable love and service to others? There are plenty of saints for that. Female spirituality? There are plenty of saints for that. Meditative spirituality? There are plenty of saints for that.
The point is, no matter your spiritual condition and the love that moves your faith you can find friendship with the saints.
Friendship, as we know, is a human instantiation of the Trinity. St. Augustine considered friendship the manifestation of Trinitarian love between humans, the closest human expression to Divine love. Like Father and Son, friends are bound in a relation of love with each other, sealed by the Holy Spirit. The self-giving love of the Trinity is found in the self-giving love of friends to each other.
This self-giving love, which is an expression of divinization, is found in the lives and writings of each and every saint of the Church. Their writings are invitations to friendship. Not just with them, but with God. That’s because their writings are expressions of God’s self-giving love, for their writings are meant to help others and bring them to the Author of Love itself.
The arduous journey of Lent is not meant to be experienced alone. It is meant to be experienced in communion with others. For our God is a God of relationships: a relational trinity by nature and in a companion relationship with us because of the Incarnation and salvation history. God revealed Himself in history as another human in the person of Jesus Christ.
Those who have experienced that intense relationship with God are all around us; you can find them in your parish library, your local library, perhaps your own library if you’ve been meaning to read a certain saint who was filled with the love of God in the past.
The Unitive Force
Lent is, therefore, a call to the love that is God and the love that has moved so many souls over the millennia. This love is meant to touch your own soul. Love, as St. Thomas Aquinas said, is the “unitive force.” Love gathers all things together.
In an age of distractions, reading brings a spirit of calm over the chaotic storms of life. Moreover, as I’ve told students, reading is also a spiritual discipline. Reading can, and should, be a meditative and prayerful discipline integral to your spiritual life. Nourished by the wisdom of the writings of the saints, their writings become pathways for meditation, pathways for the interior life of the spirit
This Lent is a wonderful moment to dwell in the love that has inspired, shaped, and formed our own faith. It is a moment to get in touch with those souls who have ensured the passing on of our faith, hope, and love to a new and next generation.
As Lent starts, consider your own saintly Confirmation name. Now is a perfect time to get to know more about the saint who has an inseparable relationship with you. Likewise, any saint that you’ve told yourself you will read is now waiting for your loving hands, eyes, and ears.
God’s love speaks to us through many ways. Including the lives and writings of the saints. We just need to have the eyes to see and ears to hear. Lent is a perfect time to see and hear the love of God through the wisdom of our forebears.
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