March 7th , 2024
Dear Companion of St. Anthony,
Let me share with you a reminder of the “Prayer Over The People,” that concluded our Mass on Ash Wednesday, February 14, 2024:
“Pour out a spirit of compunction, O God,
on those who bow before your majesty,
and by your mercy may they merit the rewards you promise to those who do penance.”
“Compunction” is one of my favorite words from our Christian spiritual vocabulary. It is just so visual. When I prayed this prayer over the congregation at our 8AM Mass here at the Shrine that morning, I had the impression that I would take this opportunity to share more about it with you. “Compunction” contains the root word for “puncture” and calls to mind for me an important paradox of our faith. This spirit of compunction, of being “punctured,” if welcomed by us, will lead to a deflation of sorts of any spiritual pride, or vanity. However, unlike most things that get punctured, we are not left flat. In fact, it is that puncturing of our spiritual pride that makes it possible for us to experience God’s grace—and it is a call to then grow in response to God’s action.
Lent may have already gotten us to act more virtuously and sacrifice more honestly or at least to attempt to do so. The real point of this gift is that we are invited to experience as a result a sense of relief and possibly joy as more and more we are filled with the life of God’s Holy Spirit. We no longer need to hide these aspects of ourselves from God. We can be more honest about our total dependence on God. Certainly, changes of behavior will most likely be necessary for each of us as we move forward through Lent towards Holy Week and Easter. However, being emptied of anything that is meaningless in God’s sight offers us an opportunity to be filled up with what is meaningful in God’s sight. That has to mean being recreated by the Holy Spirit. Not to just act better but to become a new person in Jesus Christ.
Here are two passages from Sacred Scripture that might help us to surrender into the hands of our loving God as we continue our journey of Lent and to grow to being more the person that God sees when He looks lovingly at us.
Jeremiah 18:6 “Like clay in the hand of a potter, so are you in my hand, house of Israel.”
2 Corinthians 4:7 “But we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not of us.”
Peace,
Friar Gary Johnson, OFM Conv.