This Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time finds us standing on the threshold of Lent, which, for those who, like me, lose track of time, starts this Wednesday. Our readings today provide us an opportunity to ponder this holy season. At a minimum, we should commit ourselves to what the Church asks of us: fasting on Ash Wednesday, abstaining from meat on Fridays during Lent, and observing “a spirit of fasting” throughout Lent.
Viewed from one angle, Lent is a way of preparing for our celebration of Christ’s resurrection at Easter. Looked at from a slightly different slant, Lent gives us an opportunity to live more intensely the new life we have in Christ.
Our first reading, taken from Sirach, is about the importance of words. Words are not merely containers or transmitters of thoughts and ideas. In a very real sense, our words are our thoughts. As Jesus says it in our Gospel reading: "from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks"1
As a Christian, you should understand that how you say something is as important as what you say. In some situations, how you say what you say is more important than what you say. Most of us are familiar with the phrase "speaking the truth in love." This implies that it is possible to speak the truth in a manner that lacks love.
Because love is what constitutes reality at its deepest level, to speak the truth without love is to speak falsely. To say what is true without love is like showing someone a crystal wine glass by slamming it down on the table in front of her, causing it to shatter.
So-called “tough love,” when and if appropriate, can really only be spoken to someone who already knows that you genuinely love her/him. There may be no worse way of speaking to another person than to speak the truth in anger, or with contempt, or out of hatred and hostility.
The Letter of James instructs Christians to be quick "to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of a man does not accomplish the righteousness of God."2 You can only feel righteous anger if you are righteous. To think yourself righteous is to mistake self-righteousness for genuine righteousness.
It is important to think about and prayerfully discern how you are going to use this season before it starts. I urge you over the next few days, to find some time and a place to be silent. And in the silence, examine yourself and listen to God.
During these quiet times, take stock of what needs to change in your life to be a more faithful Christian disciple. This is the beginning of the process of conversion. For a Christian, conversion, which means attaining "the fullness of the stature of Christ," is to become like Christ and love others like he does.3
Becoming like Christ does not happen incidentally or accidentally. It can only happen intentionally. It begins with the desire to be like Christ. This is followed by the realization of how much I have to change to be like him. It begins by perceiving the beam in your own eye. Closing this gap between desire and reality is called repentance.
To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy: “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Riffing off Tolstoy, political satirist P.J. O’Rourke wryly observed: “Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”
Lent is about changing yourself by the grace of God through the practice of the spiritual disciplines. One of those disciplines, almsgiving, is serving others. So, helping Mom do the dishes takes on more importance than serving as the punchline of a joke.
As Jesus says in our Gospel, no disciple is greater than her/his teacher. A disciple is someone who practices the disciplines of a Master. While, according to Jesus, when fully trained, a disciple can become “like” his Master, he cannot be greater than the Master. How is a disciple of Jesus trained? By practicing the disciplines Jesus teaches by word and example.
The fundamental spiritual disciplines taught by the Lord himself, as we will hear (again) on Ash Wednesday, are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Just as hope is the least understood of the theological virtues, fasting, the spiritual discipline to which hope is most closely tied, is the most neglected of these disciplines.
It is almost an affront in our overfed society to suggest eating less and less frequently. Yet, our diocesan decree concerning the observance of Lent and Easter instructs:
A spirit of fasting is recommended during all of Lent in anticipation of the great feast of Easter. In this way, Christians express their hunger for God, their responsibility to the poor and their recognition of the Kingdom of God as the answer to all human hungers4Fasting is closely tied to almsgiving. When undertaken in the proper spirit, fasting puts you in solidarity with those who go hungry involuntarily. You can then take the money you save from eating less and drop it in the Rice Bowl box. In this way, you cooperate with God in changing yourself as well as help make a difference in the world. This is but one simple example of the good fruit Jesus insists his followers must produce.
The snippet by Tolstoy appeared in a pamphlet he published in 1900. This relatively short text bears the title Three Methods of Reform. Here is the full quote from which the short paraphrase is taken:
There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himselfEach one of us should “feel” this need for inner revolution, transformation, conversion. To acknowledge this feeling is nothing other than recognizing “the Kingdom of God as the answer to all human hungers.”
Our Collect, or Opening Prayer, today speaks deeply to the present world situation:
Grant us, O Lord, we pray,One of the most beautiful things I saw last week in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a group of Ukrainian Christians, most of them young adults, singing hymns of praise to God that speak of forgiveness, salvation and joy in the subway of Kiev, where they, along with others, were taking shelter. This reminded me of the hymn singing relief workers and other foreigners heard in Haiti after the major earthquake in 2010. My dear friends, these are examples of good fruit produced through spiritual discipline. These are beautiful examples of Christ's Church rejoicing, "untroubled in her devotion."
that the course of our world
may be directed by your peaceful rule
and that your Church may rejoice,
untroubled in her devotion
As I mentioned at the beginning, practicing the spiritual disciplines more intentionally and intensely over Lent isn’t just a way to prepare for our celebration of Christ’s resurrection at Easter. It is a way of living the resurrected life you received when you were baptized now. But these two are related: what Lent is a preparation for is the renewal of your baptismal promises at Easter. Practicing the spiritual disciplines is a commitment to living the kingdom of God as a present reality and not as a dream deferred.
1 Luke 6:39.↩
2 James 1:19.↩
3 Ephesians 4:13.↩
4 Official 2022 Lenten and Easter Observance, Intermountain Catholic, 25 February 2022. ↩
No comments:
Post a Comment