Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

As Christians we long for our Daily Bread. If you can look about your day today and know that you have food enough for today, clothing enough for today, shelter enough for today, then your longing should be complete.

Today’s Lenten Gospel has Jesus admonishing religious showmanship—those who see their faith as a showy thing of wearing fine robes, being sought out for wisdom, and being free to inform others what is best for them. There is this longing to be the teacher, or, if not to be the teacher then to follow the right one and be amidst the “in crowd” of chosen disciples they gather around them.

Jesus redirects the disciples to long for simpler things, to be grounded in their need for daily bread, and to know that if they are not first orienting their hearts on God then they are not truly going about their lives of faith.

Each Tuesday we will remember this return to orienting our heart to a relationship with God. The next step is orienting our longings to our Daily Bread and letting our other longings dissipate.

It is not that these other longings are wrong but we must ground ourselves first in our basic needs and then see what is in addition to that as something greater. We need to know that our core selves as Christians derive from our core prayer as Christians: the Lord’s Prayer. If we can rest ourselves in that we can better discern all other longings that enter our lives.

Pax,

— Ben