A Sunday Thought About the Present Moment to Help Us Start the Week Off Right and Prepare for Lent

We've entered that stepchild of a month: February. In the Northeast, February typically brings a bleak landscape of bare branches, with nature fast asleep. With the fewest number of days of any month, it's more a placeholder than a "real" month in our calendar.  And with 2016 being a Leap Year the prospect of slogging through and extra day of February just doesn't seem that enticing.

But this year we Catholics can't dwell on February's short-comings. Because in a few days, Lent arrives. (Easter is early this year: March 27th!) So instead of focusing on February's shortcomings let's prepare ourselves for this Holy Season by digging a little deeper into Father De Caussade's words from last Sunday:

We are bored with the small happenings around us, yet it is these trivialities - as we consider them which would do marvels for us if only we did not despise them.

Father was a great spiritual writer and director of souls. He coined a phrase for this idea: The Sacrament of the Present Moment. This Sunday, our guide to a better understanding of this "sacrament" will be Abbot John Chapman. who recommended Father De Caussade's Sacrament of the Present Moment in his writings and spiritual direction.

Every circumstance of our lives is a means of getting to heaven and a part of God's providence; so that at every moment we are in touch with God.

Think about this: "every moment we are in touch with God." Not just when we're at Mass, or decide to pray, or when we're reading spiritual works or studying the doctrines of our Holy Faith: every moment of our lives, morning, noon, and night. Rather awesome, isn't it?

So we need not see him, as we feel His hand in every outward thing and in every inward non-willful feeling - and even in our will as well, when it is good. Only this is a truth to be acted on.

Consider not so much the good Abbot's analysis of which feelings or acts of will represent God's presence in us as his stark, direct statement: "this is a truth to be acted on." We're not merely observing events surrounding us, or noting our thoughts and feelings. Once we recognize the awesome reality of being "in touch with God," we now need to act in accordingly.

Abbot Chapman wants to be absolutely certain that we understand that our lives can and, really, must change once we understand the presence of God in each and every moment of our lives, right here, right now. Once we understand the Sacrament of the Present Moment, we understand while most of us won't see God in this life, all of us can experience His Sacred Presence. Such realization brings us the consolation we need, and so often want, in life's many trials.

When we realize that God is not only in every external event, but in every internal event - I mean every involuntary feeling we have - we realize that, at every moment of our life, we are in touch with God, and His hand is on us; we have only to be carried in his arms. Our care must be not to jump out of them, and try to walk alone...

...As a fact, we are always in touch with God; everything that happens is His arrangement, His Providence, and a means of grace, a push on to heaven; only most people try to go their own way and thus put obstacles to God's action. Once give yourself wholly to Him, and you realize that He is always working outside you by circumstances, and inside you by your thoughts and distractions - unless you resist. This is the way of pure love. It is very dark and painful on the surface; but there is something behind which is really strength and peace."

When Lent commences this week on Ash Wednesday, we have a unique opportunity to act on our understanding that "we are always in touch with God." This week we'll find special ways to connect our work with Lent. Meanwhile, without neglecting our special Lenten prayers, fasting, and almsgiving (understood as giving not only things, but ourselves in acts of charity), we can allow this "Sacrament of the Present Moment" to help us know we are "always in touch with" God throughout this Holy Season and beyond.