What's your shack?

 Today is the first Friday of Lent. Lent is 40 days before Easter Sunday and a time to grow in faith and holiness by shedding some extra weight. Shedding things that weigh us down takes hard work on our part. If I were to look in the mirror of my soul my reflection would be a fat, indulgent, purring lazy cat.

Just don't think about it and indulge in the luxury of ignoring everyone else, says my soul.

Pray? A thing of Medieval times... says my soul

Lots of comfort given to my gluttonous soul.

 Nevertheless, God calls me to more and to be like Jesus is to imitate Him and be willing to shed some of the things that weigh me down. 

Father Dan Leary, my church's prior priest, is hosting a weekly Podcast on each Friday during Lent. I will be posting them here. Catholic or not, you are invited to listen. We have all been living a sort of Lent by having things and commodities taken away from us with the strict limitations of the pandemic. The beauty of suffering through our pain with God and coming out more united to Him and less attached to the identity of our suffering, is what helps us identify more with Jesus in His suffering and ultimately hope. Hope, Easter Sunday, resurrecting from death is something offered to us all. 

Fr Dan asks us in this podcast to write down what our shack is. This comes from the life of Fr Al Schwartz, a DC Priest who traveled the world to help poor children, who willingly lived in a cold shack without water or plumbing for 4 years and emerged a priest unafraid to help hundreds of thousands of children who were tossed into the street.

The shack where Fr Al lived for 4 years in Korea

 He gave up comfort to understand Jesus in poverty, just a Jesus went into the desert for 40 days. 

"As Jesus lived like a Poor Man, Fr. Al understood in a provocative manner that he could serve the poor most effectively by becoming poor." - Kevin Wells

If I had a shack in my backyard, there is little chance I would sleep in it overnight let alone for 4 years. The only shack my soul will ever want to enter is the Shake Shack.

Who cares about Lent, says the soul. Feed me a juicy mental burger and leave me be.

 However, from the comfort of my soul and avoiding going into the darkness of inner shacks I know there is Jesus waiting there for me. I'll sit and ask God to reveal my inner shack, a place that makes me say "I don't want to go there!" and ask for patience from the Holy Spirit to go and sit in that shack with Jesus a little bit each day till Easter.

Click here to see Fr Dan's Podcast on YouTube.