Lenten Reading

Friday, Feb. 05, 2016

If you’re looking for guides to this year’s Lenten journey,  I have three books to suggest.

I’ve mentioned Matthew Kelly’s “Rediscover Jesus” and Henri Nouwen’s “The Return of the Prodigal Son” when I first received them, but now having read them both, I highly recommend them. 

Kelly’s book is ideal for Lent; it has 40 chapters, so if you take one for each day of the penitential season, it’s not a tremendous time commitment, because the longest chapter is eight pages; most are three or four. Each chapter ends with a point to ponder and a very brief prayer.  

Kelly writes in an approachable style, but his message hits home, whether he’s discussing generosity, forgiveness or Jesus’ call for Christians to radically transform their lives.  

Here’s a sample from Chapter 22, “Beyond Tweaking:, in which he asks, “Do you want God to completely overhaul your life and totally transform you?” His conclusion is that “we don’t necessarily want our lives transformed. Sure, we want some tweaking, but not transformation.”

Nouwen’s book also deals with transformation, but on a completely different level – he uses Rembrandt’s painting of the Biblical parable as the basis for his own journey through the lessons of the three men in the story: the younger son, the elder son and the father.

I’ve never said this about a book before, but I think anybody over the age of 40 could relate to this one. For example, while reflecting on his empathy for the older son, Nouwen writes, “There are many elder sons and elder daughters who are lost while still at home. And it is this lostness – characterized by judgment and condemnation, anger and resentment, bitterness and jealousy – that is so pernicious and so damaging to the human heart.”

While Nouwen himself led an “obedient and dutiful life” similar to the elder son in the parable, when he first saw Rembrandt’s masterpiece he identified most strongly with the younger son: “The son-come-home was all I was and all that I wanted to be. … I desired only to rest safely in a place where I could feel a sense of belonging, a place where I could feel at home.” 

By his journey’s end, Nouwen realizes he, like all mature adults, is called to become the compassionate father, to “prepare my heart to receive anyone, whatever their journey has been, and to forgive them from that heart.”

Contemplating Rembrandt’s depiction of the father’s hands as he welcomes home his wayward son, Nouwen recognizes that the Father “is mother as well as father. … He holds, and she caresses. He confirms and she consoles. He is, indeed, God, in whom both manhood and womanhood, fatherhood and motherhood, are fully present.”

Becoming father-like is difficult, Nouwen acknowledges: “This is a real discipline. It requires choosing for the light even when there is much darkness to frighten me, choosing for life even when the forces of death are so visible, and choosing for truth even when I am surrounded with lies.”

The third book, “Messy & Foolish” by Matthew Warner, is the perfect jumpstart for Lent. At less than 100 pages and easy to read, it offers inspiration to cause the mess that Pope Francis called for at the end of the 2013 World Youth Day when he said, “I want a mess. … I want the Church to go out into the streets! I want us to defend ourselves against everything that is worldliness, installation, comfortableness, clericalism, being shut in on ourselves. …” 

To my mind, there is no better Lenten resolution than to make that kind of a mess, and these three books will help along the way.