BAKER'S BITS - 4th Sunday of Lent - March 14, 2021

1. I pray your Lent is going well! I share this reflection with you from Fr. Alexander Schemann.

“LENT IS A GIFT! Lent is a gift from God to us, a gift which is admirable, marvelous, one that we desire. Now a gift of what? I would say that it is a gift of the essential – that which is essential and yet which suffers most in our life because we are living lives of confusion and fragmentation, lives which constantly conceal from us the eternal, the glorious, the divine meaning of life and take away from us that which should “push” and, thus, correct and fill our life with joy. And this essential is thanksgiving: the acceptance from God of that wonderful life, as St. Peter says, “...created out of nothing...,” created exclusively by the love of God, for there is no other reason for us to exist; loved by Him even before we were born, we were taken into His marvelous light. Now we live and we forget. When was the last time I thought about it? But I do not forget so many little things and affairs that transform my whole life into empty noise, into a kind of traveling without knowing where.”

Z PERA OTCA BAKERA

1. Modlím sa, aby ste dobre prežívali Pôst! Chcem sa s vami podeliť o úvahu otca Alexandra Schemanna.

“PÔST JE DAR! Pôst je pre nás dar od Boha, dar, ktorý je obdivuhodný, úžasný, ten, ktorý chceme.” Ale je to dar čoho? Povedal by som, že je to dar toho podstatného - toho čo trpí najviac v našom živote, pretože žijeme životy v zmätku a fragmentácii, životy, ktoré neustále pred nami skrývajú večný, slávny, Boží zmysel života a berú nám to, čo by nás malo “tlačiť” a tým napraviť a naplniť náš život radosťou. A to podstatné je vďakyvzdanie: prijatie tohto nádherného života od Boha, ako hovorí svätý Peter: “...stvoreného z ničoho ...”, vytvoreného len láskou Božou, lebo neexistuje žiadny iný dôvod, aby sme existovali; On nás miloval ešte predtým, než sme sa narodili, zobral nás do Jeho nádherného svetla, v ktorom teraz žijeme, avšak zabúdame. Kedy som o tom posledný raz premýšľal? Ale nezabúdam na množstvo maličkostí a detailov, ktoré menia celý môj život na prázdny hluk, na cestovanie bez toho, aby som vedel kam.”