During Lent, what good does it do for us to give up candy and beer, Celebrity Apprentice and Facebook, to increase our daily Mass attendance and personal devotions, or even to drop a little extra money in the offering basket or a bag of unwanted clothes at the Salvation Army, if we continue to crucify Jesus with our malicious and divisive words, thoughts and desires toward our neighbor, especially those who are fellow-members of Christ’s Mystical Body? For in doing so, we not only wound the Body of Christ and undermine the Church’s mission, but we also sabotage our own efforts in the spiritual life, impede the workings of the Holy Spirit, lose grace from our souls, and corrupt ourselves (and others) in the process.

We have been led, by way of the Liturgical Year, into the “desert” (or “wilderness”) for the liturgical season of Lent ("the Great Fast” in the East), which is derived from the Latin word for 40. As we know, the desert is not only a geographical location, but it is a fearful spiritual journey into unknown territory, a divine encounter with Almighty God, and an unavoidable confrontation with the Enemy.

It is not merely a sentimental notion but a living reality that the love of others is directly informed and fulfilled by the love of God, which is essentially our response to he who first loved us and who gives us the grace to love with a divine love. Thus our love for one another is proportionate to the love of God that dwells within us and to our union with he who IS Love.

On 27 January 2010 Pope Benedict XVI gave his address to the general audience on the topic of St. Francis of Assisi. Pope Benedict speaks about the life and vocation of St. Francis of Assisi and the crisis of the Church in Francis’ own times, as well as his approach to helping heal that crisis. I cannot help but hear in these prophetic words from the Pope an echo of what is contained in our Rule, my Letters, and conversations between Oblates and those interested in so-called “new monasticism”.

Profoundly saddened by the misfortunes that the Church was then passing through in his time (the 13th Century), St. Francis of Assisi conceived the incredible design of renewing everything conformably to the principles of Christian law – i.e., the Gospel. Francis, in the impossibility of opening the Order to all who had the desire of being formed in his “school”, resolved to provide, even for souls living in the whirlpool of the world, the means to tend to Christian perfection. Thus was born the project, which no founder of a regular Order had yet imagined, to cause the religious life to be practiced by all.