The Desert: The Location of Lenten Prayer
Fr. Matthew Pratscher
Originally posted on 2/28/2010

Lent is a rather unique liturgical season, whose effects can be seen and felt throughout the public sphere. This season is characterized by intense discipline, particularly regarding prayer, fasting, and almsgiving with their goal being to prepare us to receive more fully and to live out more authentically the Easter Mystery. What sets Lent apart from the rest of the year is its location: the desert. Lent brings us to the forty days Jesus spent in the desert before his public ministry. These forty days in the desert draw us to the forty years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert. In order to understand what is so distinct about Lenten prayer and a Lenten spirituality, it is important to see it within the context of the desert.

The desert is often characterized as simply transitional. We speak of Jesus’ time in the desert as mere preparation. The desert is the place between Egypt and the Promised Land, through which the Israelites wandered for forty years. However, many generations later, the desert would not be seen as the coincidental location of a journey but as essential to the identity of the Israelites. Not long after the Kingdom of Israel had been established, it began to experience political turmoil, dividing itself into two kingdoms. Not only did the Northern Kingdom, Israel, establish itself as autonomous from the Southern Kingdom, Judah, and thus from the Temple in Jerusalem, which was located in Judah, but the worship of some of the gods of the region, such as Ba’al, became popular. As the Assyrian invasion drew near, the prophet Hosea arose, speaking of the exile into the desert as a blessing, as the place of covenant. Through Hosea, God spoke about Israel in Hosea 2:8,13-16:

And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished upon her silver and gold which they used for Ba’al. And I will punish her for her feast days of the Ba’als when she burned incense to them and decked herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, says the Lord. Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards, and make the Valley of A’chor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. And in that day, says the Lord, you will call me, “My husband,” and no longer will you call me, “My Ba’al.”

The desert is the place where God allures his people in order to communicate his covenant with them, speaking of it in nuptial terms. It was in the desert where God protected the Israelites and led them by a pillar of fire and a cloud of smoke (see Ex. 13:21). It was in the desert where God fed the Israelites with bread from heaven, manna, and quail (see Ex. 16), and he gave them water from the rock to drink at Meribah and Massah (see Ex. 17:1-7). It was in the desert that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob revealed his name to them, entering into a relationship with them (see Ex. 3:14; 6:2-8). It was in the desert where God gave them the Ten Commandments and entered into a covenant with them, in which they would be his people and he would be their God.

This desolate wilderness becomes the place of life, where lovers meet: “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord, I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown” (Jer. 2:2), and “Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?” (Songs 8:5). The prophets proclaimed that Israel’s return to the desert was less about punitive legal action and more about Israel’s infidelity to their God, who is faithful to his people and loves them as a groom loves his bride. In the desert, because of its danger and lifelessness, one must turn toward God and give their heart to him. It is a place where the temptations to give one’s heart to idols must cease, resulting in the opening of the heart to God. After all, God speaks to the heart, and this is the foundation of prayer.

Prayer in the desert has a radical dimension of self-awareness. In the solitude and silence, we are forced to engage those noises in our hearts that keep us from resting in the Lord. It is no surprise that the early desert fathers spoke much about virtue and vice, especially in terms of the appetite and passions. The goal of the discipline of the desert is to root out attachments to sin and earthly things and discover God as the source of happiness and our motivation to love. This prayer discipline begins with silence. It is necessary to take time out each day away from distractions and simply sit with the Lord in silence. Empty yourself, ridding yourself of distractions and worries, so that you can receive from God. Be silent and enjoy a moment of sitting with the Lord, aware that he is present, seeing, knowing, and loving you more than you know and love yourself. God took care of the Israelites in the desert; he will take care of you. So your Lenten disposition should be one of openness and childlike dependence.

This openness is aimed at opening one’s heart so that it may receive new life from the pierced heart of Christ. When one makes a Lenten promise of prayer, it often becomes more about the prayer or the amount of prayers said rather than the interior movements of the soul. When you pray with Scripture—and the same is true for other devotions and prayer forms such as Stations of the Cross, Chaplet of Divine Mercy, Eucharistic Adoration, the Rosary, and the Liturgy of the Hours (These common Lenten devotions can be done routinely, reminding us of our daily need to be rooted in the Lord, and are centered around Christ’s perfect gift of himself for us), read through it slowly, paying attention to what words, images, and memories strike your heart. Savor the Word of God, and pay attention to any changes in your emotions and awareness of God. God speaks tenderly to the heart.

May this Lent be a season of simplicity, aiding us in entering the desert so that we may routinely open ourselves to being radically able to receive the love of the Lord, which is a gift given to us most perfectly at the Easter Triduum, when God spares nothing out of love for us, offering his body, blood, soul, and divinity for our sake and the sake of the whole world.