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Intimacy could be described as our capacity for closeness and tenderness toward things. It is often revealed in moments of risky self-disclosure. Intimacy lets itself out and lets the other in. It makes all love possible, and yet it also reveals your utter incapacity to love back as the other deserves. Intimacy therefore encompasses a loneliness, but a sweet loneliness. In intimate moments, you have been touched by something you cannot yet endure or carry, but you still love the touch and the invitation to carry.

To have a place of solitude is an inestimable gift. It makes it easy to let the heart expand, to let the senses wake up, one by one, to come alive with fresh vitality. Yet, whatever our circumstances, we need to somehow set aside a time and a place for this kind of experience. It is a necessity in everyone’s life, not a luxury. What comes alive in those moments of solitude is more than eyes or ears; our heart listens and rises to respond. All of us—each in a different measure—have need of solitude, because we need to cultivate mindfulness.

Jesus is clear in the Gospels: Love God, love others, love yourself. Jesus tells us this is the greatest commandment. If we do this, keeping the other commandments will fall into place with little effort. Sometimes Lent seems like a series of difficult tasks that we toil over to show our spiritual strength and endurance. Julian of Norwich and the other mystics remind us that it’s not about what we do, it’s about what God does. Our Lenten practices should make room in our lives to contemplate the great mystery of love.

Following the ways of Jesus: That was how Saint Francis and his brothers were to live their lives, and they would do it by being poor like Christ; by being men of the road like Jesus and his Apostles; by preaching God’s word as Jesus did; by being brothers to one another, to others, and to all creatures; and by the penance of their lives, emptying themselves for love of him who had emptied himself for love of them.