Lent is a time to go deep spiritually, to focus on what is keeping me from being fully open to God’s love and will for me. Two passages from scripture readings in the first week of 3 Lent are resonating with me particularly so far this season. One is the pivotal teaching of Jesus in the Gospel according to Luke (9:22-25): “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
So, let me stop here and ask the question: do I want to “come after” Jesus—truly? Jesus says this involves taking up my cross daily and following him, which I believe means far more than bearing patiently with the hardships of my own life. While Jesus’ crucifixion has a deep theological meaning, it also had a specific human cause: Jesus annoyed the authorities of his day by speaking and acting against injustice, greed, and hard-heartedness and in favor of mercy, generosity, and forgiveness. Do I follow Jesus by doing likewise? More to the point, am I willing to sacrifice my personal interests to do so, understanding that by doing so, I will “save” my life?
A recent insight by a Protestant minister friend also has me thinking about another story from Luke: the temptations of Jesus in the desert (Luke 4:1-13). The three temptations (to turn a stone into bread, rule kingdoms, throw himself down from the Temple parapet), my friend pointed out, can be understood as tempting Jesus to abuse his power as the Son of God in three ways: economic, political, and religious. While I don’t have a great deal of any of those kinds of power, it did get me thinking, “in what ways might I be tempted to abuse the power that I do have as a child of God?” For example, do I ever abuse my powers of thought and speech by accusing, disparaging, or ridiculing others, for example those I find difficult to like or even understand?
Finally, I have always thought it wise that Lent begins on Ash Wednesday with a stern warning against spiritual pride or seeking temporal rewards for the Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving (Matthew 6: 1-18). Our dear St. Francis was keenly aware of that temptation. In the story about “the wonderful forty days’ fast of St. Francis” in the Fioretti, it is recounted that he spent it alone on an uninhabited island, with only two loaves of bread to eat. When he was fetched from the island on Holy Thursday, there were one and a half loaves left. As the story goes, “It is believed that St. Francis ate the other half out of reverence for the fast of the Blessed Christ, who fasted forty days and nights without taking any material food. And so with that half loaf he drove from himself the poison of pride.” Food for thought during our forty days indeed. May the Lord give you peace.
(Source: Raphael Brown, “The Little Flowers of St. Francis,” Doubleday, 1958)