February 10, 2016
“The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do
the right deed for the wrong reason.”
This quote from T.S. Eliot comes in a play where a
saint is tempted by many things but does not give in, and then the final
temptation arrives: “To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”
If Satan could convince us to not fast at all this
Lent, he would.
If not, he will try to get us to fast in a silly way,
to give up chocolate chip cookies for Lent, as we eat brownies instead, or,
perhaps, we obey the abstinence from meat on Fridays by having a feast of
shrimp and lobster.
If we are not taken in by any of this, the last
temptation comes: “to do the right deed for the wrong reason.”
We fast, in order to impress people.
We fast, in order to lose weight.
We fast, in order to fulfill some New Year’s
resolution.
Jesus told us to love God above all things and to love
our neighbors as ourselves.
Love is the
heart of Christianity, but our love is weak and disordered. We do not love God
with all our heart and soul and strength, so we need to spend time in prayer
this Lent.
We do not love our neighbors who are created by God,
our brothers and sisters, so we need to give away that which we love more than
them, our money and our time.
We do love ourselves, but we love ourselves in the
wrong way;
we should love ourselves like parents, with some
discipline, having our best interest at heart, but, instead, we love ourselves
like senile grandparents, over-indulging ourselves with candies and toys, so we
need to start refusing ourselves treats sometimes.
Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are good for us.
They should hurt.
Our souls complain about being unselfish.
Do not give in to the complaints!
Our souls warn us that this is too much, too much
prayer, fasting, and almsgiving; it will kill us: without selfish indulgence,
we will die.
Good! Let us die.
Let us be nailed to the Cross with our Savior.
Then, when Easter comes, he can raise us up.
Our souls are flabby and out of shape.
The combined effect of all the sins we commit is a puny,
scrawny, pathetic souls.
We are in serious need of spiritual exercise: prayer,
fasting, and almsgiving.
If we make feeble attempts, we will get feeble
results.
It is 44 days from now until we celebrate the Easter
Triduum, we get 4 days of introduction and then, on Sunday, the 40 days of Lent
begin.
The lazier we are, spiritually, the rest of the year,
the more seriously we should look to these days as a time of intensive effort,
for the soul.
If we are going to make this intensive effort, we had
better be sure that we are doing it for the right reason.
If we fast and tell people about our fasting,
if we give to the poor our money or our time and make
certain that the world is aware of our generosity,
if we pray so
that others will see us, all that effort will be wasted.
Only our pride will be strengthened; our souls will be
weakened further.
Let us pray until we fall head-over-heels in love with
God.
Let us give away our money and time until we begin to
love our neighbors as ourselves.
Let us fast until our love for ourselves is no longer
self-indulgent.
When we look out and see the canyon between us and
heaven, we want to move forward, we want to take the leap of faith, but we are
afraid, afraid of many things, but especially frightened that we will begin to
live a new life and soon fail and be laughed at for ever trying.
Lent is our training ground, our opportunity to try
out the life of the Saints.
If we cannot be perfect all year-round, let us try to
be as perfect as possible for forty days straight.
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