Time for a course correction

If you're already getting slack, read on!

So maybe it’s a good time to be asking yourself how is Lent going? I do think it’s a good question — and I think it’s easier to answer if we honestly review our day at the end of each day and make a resolution — just one — to do something better the next.

I also think it’s good if we have accountability partners who keep us honest. I have one, through the Exodus 90 disciplines. I have others to whom I make regular recourse, too. The human capacity for self-deception is virtually unlimited. We readily deceive ourselves as to how good and how bad we are — sometimes missing both wide of the mark, overestimating our goodness and as for our badness, well, sometimes we overestimate it, sometimes we over-focus on what are in the end mere trivialities, missing the forest for the trees, sometimes we underestimate it completely.

This is why the Church has proposed, since the beginning of the Church, that the reference point for each of us is not ourselves, but rather Christ. And that is also why accountability partners, spiritual directors, confessors become essential if we really mean to make progress in the spiritual life. All of them should continuously point us toward the person of Christ — as he is in the Gospels; as he is in the Church’s preaching; as he speaks to us through the various circumstances of daily life. For in the end, if we say we didn’t know what God wanted of us, either we are fooling ourselves or we weren’t paying attention, which is the same as fooling ourselves. That famous verse of “be not deceived, God is not mocked…” comes readily to mind. Talk to those who help you grow — and listen to what they say.

What is Lent, anyway? We tend to think of it as a time of temporary deprivation of goods we enjoy to usage of which we intend to return once Lent is over. Phew! 40 days without … coffee…candy…dessert…seconds…meat…whatever. Or maybe we take some disciplines on in which we don’t tend to persist, like cold showers, extra prayer, service projects….Can’t wait for Easter to tuck into whatever it is I have so heroically and generously given up! Those slips? Well, God understands… though what it is he understands about us we never speak aloud to ourselves, lest we really face the truth about ourselves. And those feast days — suspended Lenten observances! Except, of course, whenever the Church is serious about fasting and abstinence, the abstinence continues even if the fasting does not. Lent calls for sacrifices, and if we don’t make them…

What a wasted opportunity! Lent was, historically, the last stage of preparation of converts called catechumens who were being prepared for Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Communion at the Easter Vigil. It was the final shedding of an old way of life in which Christ was not the Way, the Truth, and Life leading us to the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit. It was that period of deep scrutiny of oneself, with the help of others expert in the matter, to identify and eliminate everything that stood in the way of a faithful and fruitful reception of the first sacraments. It was, by way of analogy, those last weeks before the wedding, when all the preparations are made, checked, and re-checked and when wedding jitters are confronted and addressed.

It becomes for us the annual spiritual spring cleaning. The whole Church prepared with the catechumens, and still does. The whole Church is called to examine itself so as to discover what lies in the way of participating more deeply and truly in the life and mystery of Jesus Christ. Growth in virtue? Sure: that’s part of Christian life. Lenten sacrifices? Ditto. But those sacrifices are meant to remove the scales from our eyes so that we may see the more clearly what it is we still cling to in preference to Christ. Those extra prayer disciplines are meant to create a taste for prayer and for an intimacy with God that is granted to those who are faithful in prayer. If you don’t end Lent with fewer cravings for whatever it is that held you captive before, you haven’t really celebrated Lent. If you don’t end up freer, you’ll have to ask yourself what were you doing? What were you telling yourself? Why did you give up on yourself and on God, preferring to believe not his promises of liberation to those who use the means but the lies of the enemy who constantly tells us it doesn’t matter, it won’t make a difference, nothing will really change — or really should.

I did indeed use the phrase “celebrate Lent.” The entire Church year is a continuous celebration of the mystery of Christ, and what Lent celebrates is all that he underwent “for us men and for our salvation,” and the possibility that we can freely choose to associate with him in what he underwent, for the praise and glory of the Father and for the salvation of souls. If you are growing in freedom already this Lent, then you have much to celebrate, remembering that the growth in freedom is due to God’s grace, for even our abilities to assent to huis gracious call is grace itself.

If you are not growing in freedom, correct course now. There is plenty of time to have the Lent you will remember as the turning point in your Christian life. Christ is calling you to this, and he equips whomever he calls. You need only respond, and then to offer your sacrifices not on your own power but with his help. He wants to do this. He wants greater freedom for you. That is his will: he wants you freer so that your love is truer. As for the one who says it doesn’t matter, “resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” That resistance is shown in your willing adherence to your Lenten plan. You can do this: you’ve been given the grace for it. To deny that is to …