The grace-filled season of Lent is upon us, but not
many Catholic Christians would readily agree that it is a grace-filled
season. Put any 10 Catholics in a room
and ask them what Lent means (for them and the for the Church), and it is a
real possibility that you will get 10 different answers. Some may view it as a prolonged time of
dreariness and dread, whilst others who have had some good catechesis see it as
a time for us to ‘reset’ our spiritual clocks which may have gone out of sync
in the past year. One of the typical
answers would be that Lent is a time to give up things one likes. While not completely wrong in itself, just
saying this without qualifying our answer leaves many with hardly any semblance
of neither joy nor purpose in this communal observance.
As I continue to grow (and hopefully to also mature)
in my spiritual aspirations, it is becoming clearer and clearer that one of the
greatest challenges that faces anybody intent on living the authentic spiritual
life is the self. It comes in all forms
and can even be easily justified by our sly human psyche. Lent and its
observances tries to move us to recognize the various ways in which we have
been listening and giving in to the self and the ego, while silencing that
deeper spiritual core inside each one of us that calls us to make the choice
for God and holiness.
Traditionally, the three areas which we are called to
be more attentive to include prayer, penance (either in abstinence or fasting)
and almsgiving (or other works of mercy).
While these are undoubtedly good in themselves, partly because the self
is diminished in the carrying out of these practices, they have to allow us to
move slowly but surely in another motivation – and that is to purify our love
of God and of neighbour.
If any of these practices are done without the purpose
of growing in our love of God, we may well miss the point of our Lenten
observances. What is the point of our
spiritual lives after all, but that we become true and authentic lovers of
God. God is love, and if we have not
grown much in our love of God in our lives, dare we say that we are ready for
heaven when our time on earth has come to an end?
In prayer, we are in purposeful communion with God. Yet, it is also a great challenge for many to
do this on a regular basis. Many may
want the goodness of God and his blessings, but how many of us want the God of
goodness? When the major part of our
prayer is centered on giving God a wish-list of our needs, we may have yet to
be aware of how we may be lacking in our love of God for God’s sake. If we are only physically present at the
Eucharist but with our hearts and minds hardly present, our love of God may
indeed be lacking. In many of the parishes
I have been serving, it has been a constant bugbear of mine to see many of the
faithful leaving the gathering immediately after receiving Holy Communion,
without waiting for the dismissal and final blessing. I have tried asking them in the most non-judgmental
way why they leave early, but have never really got an answer that centered on
the fact that they do not love God enough. Perhaps the truth is something that is so hard to admit.
In taking on penance during the season of Lent, we are
practicing self-denial so that we can purify our love of God. When we consciously forego something we love
and indulge in most of the time, we need to passively remind ourselves that our
love and appreciation of God has to surpass our love and appreciation of
earthly pleasures and delight. Each
yearning and longing for what we physically forego should be translated into
our yearning and longing for the God of love.
When we are not mindful of this, we can easily turn our Lenten
penitential practices into mere physical acts, wearing our efforts like badges
of honour.
The love of God and neighbour is clear to see in acts
of almsgiving. The Church’s constant
call for us to have the “preferential option for the poor” calls us to see in
the poor the human face of God who became poor for our sakes. Doing acts of mercy does something that opens
parts of our hearts that may have been closed to the suffering Christ. We re-appreciate the fact that Christ lived
with a real human suffering so that our own human suffering can have a
spiritual dimension and as such be a cause for our salvation and the salvation
of others.
This explains why we need Lent every year. If the love between human lovers who see each
other in the flesh needs purification and re-commitment on a regular basis,
what more our love of God whom we cannot yet see? The truth is that our lives are an
amalgamation of a slew of difficulties and challenges, joys and moments of
delight. We need to take a few steps
back and see them all against the backdrop of God and his goodness, which we
can easily take for granted. We don’t
do this well enough, or often enough. Lent
helps us to do this.
Thank you frLuke, thank you. It's like a almost a week into Lent and all that i have done was fast on Ash Wednesday only. Reflecting your ruminations, i guessed i didn't love our Lord as much as i thought i loved. i used my daily prayer time as barometer to 'measure' my love for Him and i think this is not enough as that prayer time has now become "an automatic habit." Abstinence (of meat), especially on Fridays, is my greatest difficulty. Hmmm Lord, shall i take up this challenge to gauge my love for You. So i pray O Lord, grant me the grace :)
ReplyDeletewt
As always, it is rather difficult to give up the things we take for granted in our daily lives. Abstaining from meat this Lent did not stop me from cooking meat for my family (all meat eaters, greens are "poison") even though they wondered how I could cook and not eat it? Where there's a will, there's a way and I will not falter. Trust in God and He will provide.
ReplyDeleteHi Fr. Luke,
ReplyDeleteThe Sunday before Ash Wednesday a friend of mine asked me, "So what are you giving up for Lent?" It made me feel silly, so I laughed. It seemed like - (and this happens every year) somehow we were comparing notes on just how 'holy' we were going to be for this period. As if.
I answered that I hadn't really decided yet - and that in any case any form of self-denial should be done in secret; just as with the giving of alms.
I suppose I could see Lent in this light. I am a captain of a ship, which is on a long and perilous journey. Every so often I would have to get my bearings (from some unmovable marker) and calculate just how little (or much) I've deviated from the true - and make some course adjustments to compensate for the strong currents that would inevitably push me this way and that. (Even the largest, heaviest ships are not immune from this effect). So: in order to stay on course we need to do this on a regular basis. (Not a terribly good analogy, but then no analogy is perfect).
And that's Lent. Time to take stock of how we've fallen so short of returning the love that God has showered on us. Thank you, Fr. Luke for your sharing. God bless you.