Meditations on a Theme: A Spiritual Journey

I have finished all but one of the books in my Lenten reading plan. Since our family tradition honors Passover and our church is on the Western church calendar, my Lenten preparation is over. I didn't finish
All the Messianic Prophecies of the Bible by Herbert Lockyer. I will just save it for this months reading.

Bloom's Meditations on a Theme was a delight. If I were in a liturgical church, I might not have enjoyed it as Lenten reading. The journey that Bloom is contemplating is a pre-Lenten journey designed to prepare the Orthodox faithful for the physical and spiritual discipline of Lent. If my research is correct, the sermons outlined in Bloom's book begin 5 weeks before the beginning of Lent.

This is the first step, which we must accept and which we find so difficult to accept: we must face our true situation, not consoling ourselves with the thought that we have some sort of life within us that can replace divine life. We must accept that we are in darkness as far as the light of God is concerned. And then we must do something about it. ~ An Introduction to Lent

On humility:

"This is the only means we have of releasing ourselves from the fear of public opinion, from the subservience which frustrates our finding the courage and the opportunity to reform our lives, since we have chosen human values as our criterion. As soon as we have freed ourselves from that we are left with our conscience alone, wherein the voice of God sounds freely, declaring us the judgment of God and enabling us to begin to live fully and in freedom."(page 69)

While contemplating the story of the Prodigal Son, Bloom gives perhaps the best description of the gospel, the good news, that I have ever read.

And in this he discovers the true nature of repentance, for true repentance blends together the vision of one's own evil and the certainty that there is forgiveness even for us because true love can neither falter nor be quenched. When there is only a hopeless vision of our own faults, repentance remains unfulfilled; it brings remorse and may lead to despair."
(page 78)

Finally, on March 29, my adult Sunday school teacher gave the message at church. His proof text came from Matthew 22:15-22. I had read that story and Christ's admonishment to, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s," many, many times. I had always read the story in the physical. I missed the spiritual understanding that I am to give unto God that which is in God's image. When my Sunday school teacher talked about this, I wondered how I could miss so obvious a spiritual connection! The same week I read:

"What bears the image of Caesar is his own, what bears God's own image, belongs to him: Give to each what is his -- the money to him who coined it and impressed it with his sign, but your whole self to him whose image is imprinted in you; we are God's as completely as the tribute money is Caesar's." (page 91)

I just love when I get the same message from more than one source. It feels like a confirmation.