Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Because none of us can say with truth that our spiritual lives are in a state of perfectness, we are, or should be, constantly striving to improve the state of our souls. But we are human and it is in our nature to become distracted from this mission of improvement. This is where the approaching season of Lent comes in; Lent is a time when we redouble our efforts in the life of faith, it is a spiritual “Boot Camp” wherein we strengthen ourselves against the waves of temptations the devil hurdles our way.
Brothers and Sisters, how desperately we need this strengthening! For the devil can, and does, twist almost everything that is a good into an evil; he tricks us, and makes us into little children who, upon seeing a delicious looking lollie-pop on a high counter, become blinded to the dangers of attempting to climb the counter. There are so many who walk with childlike blindness towards an apparent good, but do not see that that apparent good is, in actuality, their undoing. One can see, then, why the words of Jesus were only too true when he stated that those who walk the straight and narrow are few.
But the devil is no fool. He knows how many lukewarm and even dead souls will be raised to a new state of union and happiness with God during this blessed season of Lent. And, although it pains him most to see the hardened sinner repent, he also detests seeing the somewhat holy person, in other words ourselves, abandon his spiritual mediocrity and in doing so, destroy, at the very least, a whole year of his work. So he, like a person being pushed to edge of a cliff, makes a desperate effort against us: he hurdles a torrent of fresh temptations our way. In addition to the repentance of sinners, the devil is further enraged because with lent there comes the Triduum and with the Triduum, the crucifixion: the turning point in the history of humanity, the day the devil’s master-plan was given its deathblow.
Because of this desperate effort by the devil to pull us deeper into a life of sin, we need to increase our vigilance. The devil will begin with subtle temptations, the consequences of which are merely lilliputian sins. But, once we get into the habit of sinning, he will increase the openness and gravity of our temptations. These worse temptations would have been easy to detect if we were not in the clutches of those small, “harmless” sins, but since we are in the habit of sinning, they do not look so bad. To combat the devil’s strategy we must be ever careful and frequently perform honest examinations of conscience.
Even if we make good confessions and try to make our relationship with God stronger, there are other required elements that are part of our Lenten duties, namely to show mercy towards others through forgiveness and alms giving. For, if we expect God to forgive us, we must first “forgive those who have trespassed against us.” Moreover, since we are not only forgiven, but also reconciled by God, is it not our duty to, once we forgive the others who have wronged us, also to repair our relationships with one another? Also, because Lent is a time when one tries to make oneself as Christ-like as possible, we should also practice alms giving. For the whole purpose of Lent is the purifying of our hearts, and with that purifying becoming more Christ-like; what could be more Christ-like than the giving of oneself for the sake of others?
Happy Lent!
TTFN,
-Thomas
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