Hellooooo Lent! Hello self-purification through self-mortification. Hello "counter-cultural Christian life" at its finest. Hello 40 days of daily struggle to abstain from vice. Hello grumbled frustration of how hard it can be to keep the promise secretly made with God... Hello blah blah blah blah blah.
Lent, oh lent, what have we reduced you to?
Let's face it, Lent comes down to this: Self-denial is difficult. Comfort is easier; comfort brings temporal pleasure. I see my students acknowledge this daily--challenging work is perceived as harmful. As though their only gain will be no gain at all.
Lent is the embodiment of "challenging"--it is the intentional denial of what brings us comfort. It is a righteous challenge. But, so often Lent turns into another "new years resolution"; it turns into another "fad" that fails after day three. So often our sacrifice becomes replaced with another habit because so often we "justify" that it's too hard to yank the root completely.
"So often...so often...so often..." we continue to nag.
1. It will hurt.
2. We, including our desires and sacrifices, are not our own.
For, detachment means trust.
Trust requires faith. And faith is true joy.
Lord, for you, I yearn to sacrifice my wants for your will. I yearn to give you my deepest desires out of obedience to your plan. I yearn to love you deeply by denying myself of my own selfishness for want of the joy of heaven. For the Easter that awaits us at the end of the Lenten journey can only be revealed after we've made a true gift of ourselves.
You have spoken by the very act of death on a cross and "blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord" (Luke 1:45). Blessed is the one who trusts in you.
May Mamma Mary give you the guidance and encouragement to emulate her "fiat", and may God bless you abundantly this Lenten season.
And do not forget Easter in the midst of the desert...for
"We are an Easter people and 'Alleluia' is our song" (St. Augustine).
