Babylon's Sad Waters

"But by Babylon's sad waters
Mourning exiles now are we."

Lent begins with this realization. That we are a people in exile. That we are wandering far from our true home. And thus the beginning of repentance isn't merely the terror that one finds in wandering in a strange land; the beginning of repentance is homesickness. Something that the Holy Spirit stirs up inside us to make us long for home. And when at Church sometimes we glimpse that homeland in a way that we experience nowhere else, the Spirit stirs up the hunger for it within. We ache for it, we long for it. Home. Communion with the Blessed Trinity in the company of the holy angels and all His redeemed. Lent teaches us to fess up to how often we settle down in the land of our exile as though it were our true home; attempting to still the yearning the Spirit has created by throwing at it physical or psychological pleasure, and how it never works. Everything, but everything, about the Church's existence stirs this homesickness in us, and through her hymns, her liturgy, her readings, her disciplines, she seeks to help us ache and long for that which can never be satisfied wholly this side of heaven. Why, even the Supper causes the ache to grow more in us, as we realize that this IS what we long for - only not for a moment on our knees at the rail, but forever - to become one with Christ; His life our life; His joy our joy; His peace our peace. But the brief taste is enough to assure us: we HAVE a home; and we should settle for nothing less.

"Only Thee, only Thee."