By traditional standards, this Lent has not gone well for me. The only penance or additional practice I took on was adding Wednesday as a fast day, and even that entails little more than purposefully skipping lunch. I was faithful to it, sure, but I fast most Fridays of the year anyway, so it wasn’t much of an add. My only real point of spiritual growth came from running the Kindergarteners and 2nd graders through the Stations of the Cross – something about explaining things to young children really clarifies what is important in the story of Jesus – and for this small gift I was definitely thankful.
My Lents have been this way for a few years now. Once I became a priest, Lent has always been synonymous with stress – all of the extra events and devotions, the planning for Holy Week, the (if you can believe it) planning and calendaring for the next year. It is hard to make the emotional space to contemplate and pray. I already work on my spiritual bad habits throughout the year, so the only thing I can do for Lent is add additional penance, and I cannot help but ask the Lord aren’t I suffering enough during this season? It is hard to know whether this is a legitimate complaint to God, or whether it is my own rationalization for not wanting to give up my favorite creature comforts.
As with everything in the Christian life, our spiritual life is a journey, and I am sure these questions will be answered differently every year, in every context, for every priest and every person. For myself, I take a lot of comfort in the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, which I might best summarize as “Doing the best with what you’ve got is good enough for God.” Okay, maybe this Lent did not provide any kind of major spiritual conversion. Maybe it seemed to be a waste. But did I offer what I had, little as it may have been, to God? That is good enough for him. Like the loaves and the fishes, he will multiply it for my good, because he loves me and cares for me, always.
Maybe this Holy Week is a time for me, and for all of us, to remember that our salvation and our unity with God is not about our efforts, but about his efforts. Even when we were yet sinners, Jesus went all the way to the Cross for us. We did not have to offer him anything for him to give us everything. He will go all the way to death just to bring us back to himself.
Fr. Moore 