This is the first article in a series of Suggested Lented Practices for 2010.

Lent 2010: A Journey into the Compassion of God

Scripture tells us that God is the Source of Compassion, one who understands our suffering and desires to do something about it – and who sent Jesus to show us the way through suffering and death to fullness of life. This Lent we will journey together into the compassion of God.

Spiritual Practice: All the community is invited to enter into Lent with a particular spiritual “practice.” Before we offer small suggestions for common practice, it’s important that each of us make our individual, unique commitment. What will help you be mindful of the Spirit’s leading and attentive to the compassion of God in your life this lent? The traditional tools of our faith are:

• prayer (communing with God),
• fasting (doing without to be mindful of true value or in solidarity with those who have no choice in their “fast”) and
• almsgiving (doing good for others, especially the most in need).

Choose your personal Lenten practice(s) and begin this week.

1st Week of Lent – Justice Intersections, for further reflection:

A particular perspective: Those who stand in hope of justice and mercy... Workers who are treated unjustly, especially “alien” workers, hear in this story a reflection of their own suffering, and a hope for God’s delivering justice.

• Scriptural Reference: Reading 1: The Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us, imposing hard labor upon us...
• Church Teaching/Faith Connection: Rights of workers to organize for just wages and conditions
• Spiritual Practice of Compassionate Solidarity: Take these concrete realities into prayer, through use of the imagination. Imagine the physical and emotional experience of this particular suffering, those workers treated unjustly, without respect a well as without adequate pay. Pray in solidarity with those who at this moment are suffering in this way.
• Intersection with my own journey: In my own experiences of injustice, how do I find hope in God’s promise of deliverance?