Deep in our hearts this Lent!

                                         

   I was struck by the beauty of my wine glass on Mardi Gras, the final day of Carnival, before Ash Wednesday and remembered a beautiful saying from the Sufis, the almost-forgotten mystical side of Islam, who often speak of the love of God. "Am I ready for Lent?" I ask myself. Can I truly practice fasting from food and drink which can move me away from my selfishness?

   The Sufi ancients speak of the cup. For them, the cup is the heart. Once it is filled with faith in God; then, it has a taste. It tastes sweet. Sometimes, I believe as Christians or Muslims, we lose our taste for God. We each claim to practice fasting; but, then, I notice my Muslim friends gorge on food in the evening after they fast all day. My fellow Christians fast in Lent by eating more fish than they do at other times. As our Pope has so wisely repeated: "who am I to judge?"

   I decided one year to follow fasting like the ancients. It was very difficult at first. I tried eating small portions of food/drink and then, ventured out into a day with only one single meal. I thought again about the cup as the heart. Fasting enabled me to pray deeply and taste the sweetness the Sufis call 'divine wine.' Christians speak of Jesus' 'cup of salvation.' I would soon discover in this intoxication, hunger for food becomes absent. I began to appreciate an aspect of the divine that had escaped me for several years. The Sufi saying was right on target: once intoxicated with that sweetness of God's love, one's cup, one's heart begins to see the 'divine' wherever one looks, changing one's perspectives on the poor and the less fortunate.

   In taking fasting seriously this Lent, we can experience renewal deeply in 'our cups, in our wine glasses,' yes, indeed, in our hearts! +Don Ronaldo. Lent 2015.