BRISBANE Deacon Peter Pellicaan grew up outside the Catholic tradition – without a liturgical calendar – and so when he converted, he had to learn how to engage in Lent.
“The motivator for me is at the core a deep and personal love for Jesus,” Deacon Pellicaan, who is Evangelisation Brisbane’s executive director, said.
“It is Jesus who inspires me and gives purpose to all that I do.
“This love for Christ motivates me to more closely walk with Jesus on his journey to the cross.”
Deacon Pellicaan wrote EB’s latest Lenten Program resource The Spirit and the Cross, a collection of daily readings and reflections for the journey of Lent and the Easter Octave.
The daily reflections are short, about three minutes each day.
“Three minutes can be enough to focus our minds and open our hearts to what God might do in our lives each day,” Deacon Pellicaan said.
“Spending time with God each day is like a low risk but high return investment.
“Giving God an opportunity to break into our busy schedules for a few minutes each day can produce many benefits and blessings for the rest of the day.
“It’s like giving God our five loaves and two fishes… if Jesus can feed 5000 with five loaves and two fish, he can move throughout your whole day if you can just give him some of it.”
Deacon Pellicaan said while he was writing the book, he found overarching themes cropping up through the Lenten passages.
The first was the desert.
“God calls us into the desert, into a place of difficulty,” he said, “but he is with us and shaping us in the process.”
The second was confrontation.
“The actions and words of Jesus are often challenging, confronting and can be easily seen as culturally inappropriate in this day and age,” he said.
“Here we are challenged to listen the Jesus, to look to Jesus, to be like Jesus recognising that this will often challenge the way we interface with contemporary culture.”
The third was mercy.
“Jesus is always merciful to those who come to him with openness, honesty and contrition,” he said.
“There is hope for all of humanity, if we are willing to be humble and place ourselves at the feet of Jesus.”
Deacon Pellicaan said there were clear benefits to following a resource for Lent.
“When we do spirituality our own way too often, we can become myopic in our understanding of God,” he said.
“We only hear our own insights and become our own echo chamber.
“All of us have a different experience of God and therefore different insights to offer about God.”
He said being a father of five children himself, the relationship he had with each of his children was unique.
“All five of my children can tell you something different about me,” he said.
“In the same way, we all can share different insights about God.
“As such, we always do well to listen to each other’s insights.
“A Lenten resource like this will help readers hear a different voice and a different experience of God.”
The resource is designed both for individuals and for groups to follow through Lent.
“Spiritual formation almost always happens best in community,” Deacon Pellicaan said.
“The Church is by definition a community – the gathering.
“Groups who use this resource through Lent will be able to go even deeper with its context because not only will they read it as individuals, but they will reflect on it with others which will highlight what others took from the various reflections.
“Doing it as a group is a real bonus – an opportunity to grow together.”
He said his prayer for people journeying with The Spirit and the Cross was to see them deepen their relationship with Jesus and become a little more like Him as they approach Easter.
You can learn more about Evangelisation Brisbane’s Lenten Program sat: https://evangelisationbrisbane.org.au/lenten-program/
