Discerning Lent

by Liz Ivkovich

“And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” (1 John 5:20 NIV)

“We are in Him who is true…” The Jesus that we are in exists in this very moment, shining down on us like a spotlight. The hopes, dreams, and plans of five minutes ago are in the shadows. The future and how the pieces of the journey fit together are in the shadow. All the clarity we have is for this exact moment.

Discernment is a lifelong process for us as Christians, and so you seem to hear people talking about it all the time. Maybe it’s the community I’m in, where people live by three year contract cycles, or the friends I have who are just now graduating various schools en masse, but ‘Discernment’ seems to be the catch phrase of our generation of Christians.

Intentional Community

by Liz Ivkovich

“There is no cross without Jesus on it,” states Father James Chelich of St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Grand Rapids, MI.

There is no life in Jesus without the pain and joy of sharing in His sufferings. There is also no full life in relationship with Jesus that does not include the pain and joy of life in community. To live as a Christian means to define oneself as a ‘person-in-relationship.’

We exist in relationship with God- who names us His Beloved, we exist in relationship with the Earth that He made, and we exist in relationship with the Jesus in those around us. Next to the Blessed Sacrament, our neighbor is the holiest thing we encounter every day, submits CS Lewis in “The Weight of Glory.” Intentional community is the call of every human, as every human needs to be known and loved.