Empty me. Fill me. Use me.

During this Lent season, I have been listening to Hallow, and this prayer returns again and again:

Empty me. Fill me. Use me.

Empty me

This is kenosis.

The Path of Via Negativa. The release of what does not serve. The release of control.

The surrender of image, righteousness, and self-protection.

It is a clearing.

I imagine a forest overgrown with brush- impassable, dense, tangled.

Slowly, intentionally, a path is cleared. Not hurriedly, but faithfully.

To be emptied is to lose what we cling to. Even what once comforted us.

Fill me.

This is the Via Positiva.

The courage to receive.

Receive love.

Receive wisdom.

Receive wonder.

I imagine opening my arms, wide beneath the Sun. Its burning rays not only warming but strengthening. Grace does not only soothe. It fortifies.

Use me.

This is Via Creativa.

Expression. Offering. Participation.

To give without bargaining, To serve without performing. To love without calculating return.

When surrender, reception, and expression become one movement, this is Via Transformativa.

Transformation is not just self-improvement. It is alignment.

Fear multiplies fear. Love multiplies love.

If we desire to change, we must learn how to empty, to receive, to give, not once, but in every cell of our being.