Blog

In this jubilee year, Pope Francis has invited each of us to be a pilgrim of hope. In this spirit, the Young Adult Initiative will publish monthly blogs related to the jubilee year and our role as pilgrims on the journey.

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Take a moment and think about the first days of creation.

God the Father spoke a Word in the stillness, the Spirit swept over the waters, and out of nothing, the world was brought forth.

And this world was good.

God created night and day to order the world, to bring forth seasons and rhythms, and this was also good.

God filled the earth with animals and plants that would bear fruit in due season. This, too, was good.

But God was not satisfied with his creation – magnificent as it was – until he made men and women in his own image and likeness. This, he thought, was very good.

God had no need for anything! Father, Son, and Spirit were the perfect communion of love – fullness in themselves. And yet, the heart of God longed to invite a whole world into the life of the Trinity.

In those first days in Eden, the whole of creation was God’s temple. Life was worship. Peace and harmony reigned. Scripture says that God would “walk about in the garden” just before sunset with Adam and Eve. A nightly walk with God – can you imagine that world?

I find it very easy to become nostalgic for Eden. How much easier life would be if we were still in that mountaintop garden.

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Maybe we don’t think about gardens during Lent. After all, Jesus went into the wilderness to be tested for 40 days and nights. Maybe Lent is more of a wilderness for us.

But what do the wilderness and the garden have in common? They are places of encounter with God.

In the wilderness, we are purified, stripped of the things that take the Lord’s place in our heart. We learn to be dependent on God’s providence and trust in his promises. Think of Israel – wandering in the desert for 40 years, learning to rely on God for their daily bread. Over and over, they strayed from the Lord, and just as many times he brings them back into a covenant of love. In the wilderness, we are prepared for mission, we are transformed. It is easy to see our need for divine assistance when we are in the wilderness.

The garden is the holy place. In the garden, we reside with the Lord, we are in communion with him. His presence saturates the very air we breathe. We are drawn deeper into relationship with the author of life, the creator of the heavens and the earth. His heart becomes our heart; his will, our will. Think of Eden, that mountaintop sanctuary where the Lord walked with his people.

What happens when sin enters the garden? What happens when we talk to the snake, grasp for the apple, and attempt to become the ruler of our own life? What happens when chaos reigns, disrupting God’s order?

Even in the first, perfect garden, humanity’s relationship with God was wounded by sin.

This is where the season of Lent invites us back to the wilderness. In the familiar pattern of our liturgical life – the times and seasons God uses to draw us into his mystery – Lent comes around every year as a “reset” button on the spiritual life. When we enter the wilderness with Jesus at Lent, it is not because he wants us to remain there. The wilderness is a place of passage. A place of purification and preparation so that we can return to the garden.

A jubilee, if you will.

In his book “Jesus and the Jubilee,” John Bergsma writes, “The Church’s jubilee years are ultimately grounded in the biblical jubilee year, which – according to Leviticus 25 – came around every fifty years and was celebrated by forgiving all debts, granting freedom to all in bondage, returning everyone to their homes and family, and allowing everyone to rest in God’s fullness.”

The jubilee pattern – forgiveness, freedom, family, and fullness – is what we were created for. This is a return to Eden.

This year, let us embrace the jubilee spirit of Lent. Let us journey with Christ in the wilderness, all the while longing for the garden. Let us welcome this season of purification, so that nothing less than God’s perfection will enter the garden. Let us strive to live the jubilee pattern – the Lenten pattern – of forgiveness, freedom, family, and fullness that transforms our hearts for a return to the garden.

We have a God who desires communion with us. He created us to be the crown of creation, to share his blessed life. He is inviting us back to the garden, and the Lenten wilderness is his gift to make us ready. He goes with us, he is never far, for “[our] wilderness he shall make like Eden, [our] wasteland like the garden of the LORD.” (Isaiah 51:3)