SPIRITUAL COMBAT

The First Thursday of Lent


“What are you giving up for Lent?” I’ve heard people who don’t even know what Lent is ask this question. Popularly, it’s a time you can lose a little weight, build up your will-power and prove you can live without: chocolates/television/credit cards or (your indulgence here) for a month and a half. If we’re socially conscious, we may even think to use the money we save not going to the movies, eating out or hang-gliding to give to people who can’t afford to do any of those things. Maybe we should volunteer for something…

Nothing wrong with any of this, except that none of it has anything to do with Lent. The Church has become so anemic in living and proclaiming its message that this is what Lent has degenerated into. But before we lay the blame at the feet of bad popes and self-absorbed bishops, remember that the Church is us. We have allowed our faith to become anemic.

Lent isn’t meant to be a time for a little “spiritual checkup,” or “spiritual spring-cleaning.” That’s a notion for children. “When I became a man, I put away childish things,” St Paul growls. Lent is a time for combat. It’s patterned after Jesus, Who went into the hot, dirty desert and fasted forty days and forty nights. He didn’t give up chocolates but food. Scripture says when He was starving, the devil tempted Him, not with a steaming platter of Beef Wellington: a few crusts of dried bread was temptation enough. The Lord didn’t go without any food for forty days because He wanted to lose weight. He was looking for a battlefield where He could wage war. He offered Himself as that battlefield.

To follow Jesus into the desert of Lent is to offer ourselves as places for combat, too. We needn’t be glum, or afraid of failure, or worry we have to go without food for the duration—nor do we need to inflict our Lent on those around us. Listen to Jesus: “when you fast, don’t be gloomy like the hypocrites who want everybody to know they’re fasting…comb your hair, wash your face…and fast quietly.” Lenten combat is the struggle with the real sins you and I commit: selfishness, harboring of hatred, cherishing of wrongs, jealousy of a friend’s success or just wanting the whole banana cream pie for myself. The Lenten struggle is fought where you and I do our day-to-day living. Only now, we become aware that something’s been going on— something we hadn’t noticed before and we don’t quite know what to do about it.

If you can put the devil to flight by giving up chocolate for a month and a half—great. Write a book. But if you take Lent to heart, be ready for a real contest, ‘cause that’s what you’re going to get. Don’t worry if you’re not up to it; you’re not. This is a war you can’t win. Happily, you don’t have to. You keep your eyes on Jesus, the finisher of our faith, and the devil’s in for yet another trouncing. Not from you or me, but from the One Who defeats him over and over and over again.