On this Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, as we gather in the stillness of our monastery here in Ireland, we find ourselves standing quietly at the edge of Lent. The fields around us are still winter-bare. The mornings are cold. Yet beneath the soil, life is preparing itself. The hidden work has already begun.
So too in the Gospel today, the Lord turns our gaze beneath the surface. He does not speak merely of actions but of the heart from which actions spring. He draws us away from the comfort of external observance and leads us into the interior chamber, where anger, desire, reconciliation, truthfulness, and integrity are born. He invites us to discover that holiness is not a matter of appearances but of depth.
For us who live the Cistercian vocation, this word is particularly searching. Our life is already ordered toward simplicity, silence, obedience, and stability. Yet the Lord’s teaching reminds us that even a well-ordered life can conceal an unexamined heart. The Rule of Saint Benedict calls us to “prefer nothing whatever to Christ,” and this preference must reach into the smallest movements of thought and intention. Lent approaches not as an interruption of monastic life, but as its intensification — a sharpening of what we already seek.
In these final days before Ash Wednesday, the Church gently asks us: what is still unfinished within us? Where does resentment linger quietly beneath courtesy? Where does impatience hide behind efficiency? Where have we allowed small compromises to dull the brightness of charity?
The Gospel suggests that reconciliation cannot be postponed. Before any offering is made, peace must be sought. This speaks powerfully in a community. In a monastery, we cannot avoid one another. We meet at choir, in refectory, in chapter, in the ordinary rhythms of work. If there is even a hairline fracture in charity, it echoes in the psalmody. Lent invites us to mend those fractures now, quietly, humbly, before we approach the altar on Ash Wednesday.
There is also in today’s teaching a call to purity of heart — not merely in the narrow sense, but in the wide, luminous sense of an undivided heart. To look upon another not as object, rival, or obstacle, but as brother. To let our “yes” be truthful, our “no” be honest, our speech simple and free from manipulation. In the cloister, where words are few, each word carries weight. Lent will ask us to guard even more carefully the silence from which truth is born.
The week before Lent is not yet the fast, but it is the threshold. It is a time for quiet preparation, like the farmer checking his tools before sowing. We might ask: what concrete step of conversion is the Lord already placing before me? Not something dramatic. Not something visible. Perhaps only a decision to let go of an old irritation. Perhaps a renewed fidelity to lectio divina. Perhaps a deeper surrender in prayer when dryness comes.
The Cistercian tradition speaks often of the school of love. Saint Bernard reminds us that love grows by being purified. Lent is that purification — not harshness for its own sake, but a clearing away of what obstructs love. The Lord’s words today are not threats; they are invitations. He is not exposing the heart to shame it, but to heal it.
Here in Ireland, where the land itself bears the marks of long endurance, we know something of patient growth. Conversion in the monastic life is rarely sudden. It is slow, hidden, faithful. Lent does not create conversion; it reveals whether we are willing to continue it.
As we approach the holy season, let us not be anxious. Let us simply become attentive. The Lord is already at work in the hidden soil of the heart. If we allow Him to reach beneath our habits and touch the roots, then when Easter dawns, something quiet and strong will have risen within us.
May this week be one of gentle honesty. May we stand before God without defence. And may the One who calls us beyond the letter into the fullness of love prepare us, even now, for the grace of Lent.