We are a people who so easily “wander away” from God.
We are often doing it and not even realizing it as we do so. And it also sums up beautifully the journey of Lent.
God spoke: “Return to me with your whole heart.”
Everything else in the word today is “how” to do that.
All of our Lenten penances, all of our prayers, all of our “giving up” and “taking on” practices — all of our intentional drawing closer to God’s word, all of our “change of heart” to become more loving, more peaceful, more just, more compassionate, more generous — are so many ways that we can “return to God with our whole heart.”
But — and to this we must pay attention — all must be done in the right spirit.
Our “returning to God” is not for God’s sake, but for our sake.
“Returning to God” (who is love) is actually our way to return “to the garden” (using biblical imagery); or finding our divine inner core that can be, should be, and needs to be one with our God.
“Returning to God” is an inside job; through Lent it is often experienced in the “stuff we do” — prayers, fasting, giving alms, and giving up and taking on.
So this Lent it is all right and very proper to have our own “gypsy feet,” as long as the wandering is a wandering back to God.
And that wandering has more to do with the heart than it has to do with the feet.
Father Perry D. Leiker is the 14th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com. Follow Father Perry on Twitter: @MrDeano76.
