In an age afflicted by ecclesial bar lowering, there is always a great danger that the inherent rhythm in the liturgical year will lose its meaning. This is perhaps most true when it comes to the season of Lent. Lent “officially” begins on Sunday, but Pope St. Gregory the Great added the four days between Ash Wednesday and the First Sunday in order to add four extra days so that the Faithful would fast for a total of forty days between Ash Wednesday and Holy Thursday (Sundays and the two Solemnities of St. Joseph and the Annunciation being days to relax the fasting). In other words, unlike in our own times where we are required to fast two days during Lent, the great Pope wanted to raise the bar and make it harder! It is in this spirit that we should all resolve to make this our hardest Lent ever.
A Harder Lent?
Now admittedly, Gregory the Great was not simply trying to make it harder, even if that was one of the side effects. Instead, he was adjusting it so that Lent would retain its meaning. He wanted us, day by day, to join Our Lord in the desert during His great fast. Our Lord, true God and true Man, merited specific graces for each one of us individually each day that He fasted and fought in the desert. Lent is meant to be the time when we receive those graces, but our Lord asks us to meet Him in order for Him to give them to us.
It was no accident that Our Lord chose 40 days. Whether it is the forty days and nights of rain during the Flood, the Forty Years spent wandering in the desert, or the 40 days by which Ezekiel had to lay on his side, forty is the number of punishment and affliction. It is also the number of reparation with both Moses and Elijah joining Our Lord in reparatory fasting for 40 days. It turns out, although not surprisingly, that forty is also the magic number for developing a new habit. It is as if forty days of affliction and reparation is written into our fallen nature.
Because Christ first instituted Lent in the desert, it has all the qualities of a Christian mystery. And like all Christian mysteries it was instituted in order to bestow grace upon us. It is like a sacrament, or better yet, a sacramental. A sacred sign that is given to us that disposes us to receive grace. Living out a true Lenten spirit disposes us to receive those graces Our Lord wants to give us. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving take on a sacramental meaning, but especially fasting. The emphasis of Lent is on fasting for good reason—Our Lord sanctified and weaponized it in the desert. Lent is meant to be 40 days of hard fasting in reparation for our sins and growth in virtue.
Lent Began Well, Ends Well
Another key component of Lent is the reception of ashes on Ash Wednesday. This is not, as many think, because it is only a symbol of our sinfulness and need for Penance, but because it is a Sacramental that, when received in faith, disposes us to the necessary graces to live a hard Lent. This disposal happens through the prayer of the Blessing of the Ashes. One of the prayers of blessing in the Novus Ordo Mass says:
O God, who desire not the death of sinners, but their conversion, mercifully hear our prayers and in your kindness be pleased to bless + these ashes which we intend to receive upon our heads, that we, who acknowledge we are but ashes and shall return to dust, may, through a steadfast observance of Lent, gain pardon for sins and newness of life after the likeness of your Risen Son. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
As I have spoken of previously, the power of Sacramentals come through their actual blessing and so we must, in order to properly take advantage of them, pay attention to what they have been empowered to do. The ashes in particular then are true Sacramentals that, through the power of the Church, dispose us to receive all the graces necessary to have a “steadfast observance of Lent” and “gain the pardon of sins.” By receiving the ashes, we are each individually guaranteed to receive the prayers of the Mystical Body that we can live a hard Lent.
As an aside, Ashes are a prime example of why the blessings from the Tridentine Rite are far superior to those of the Novus Ordo. As a side-by-side comparison, take a look at the prayers. The former clearly gives a more abundant blessing upon the ashes, rendering them far more powerful to aid us during Lent. This is not a shot across the post-Vatican II bow, but a comment that, objectively speaking, the Church was far more generous in bestowing blessings upon the Faithful in the pre-Vatican II era.
Either way, armed by Our Lord in the desert and further disposed by the Ashes, we have everything we need to live a hard Lent. What if each one of us, rather than measuring out “what we will give up”, went “old school” and fasted for these 40 days. I have found that Dr. Jay Richard’s method detailed in his book is particularly effective for growing in the virtue of fasting and implementing as a daily practice in Lent. Recalling that one of the reasons why the Church had so many fast days previously was so that we could develop the virtue of fasting, we may have to start at a level that is proportional to our current level of virtue. But by the end of Lent we should all have developed the virtue and that only comes about through making it hard.
The “Great Bar Lowering” then must be met by a voluntary raising of our own bars. Genuine contrition of soul can never be achieved without mortification of the body. We are both body and soul and any attempt to separate the two in practice leads to great harm to our persons. A hard Lent, fasting especially, will create in us a disposition of sorrow for our sins and a generosity of spirit in making reparation to Our Lord. It is as if the diminishing of our physical energy brings about a supernatural energy. Make Lent Hard Again!
One of the go-to arguments
against the existence of God is the presence of evil in the world. The atheistic interlocutor looks at the
world, sees evil and concludes that there is no God. Such a conclusion rests upon a primary
assumption, namely that he can conceive of a more perfect world, a world
without suffering. Therefore either God
is a cold-blooded tyrant or He does not exist.
Given how often such an argument is given, we must be prepared to meet
it, but not in the usual way. Too often
theists respond to the conclusions rather than the assumption. In this essay we will challenge the notion
that God could have made a more perfect world.
Can we really conceive of a world in which there is no evil and, if so,
then would that world be more perfect than this one?
To conceive of a world with
no evil, at least on the surface seems relatively simple. But we must be prepared to admit that the
world would be vastly different than our own.
Not just in that it lacked evil, but that its physical properties (if it
could have any at all) would be vastly different than are own.
The Argument of the Head
Evil, properly conceived, is
a lack of a good that should otherwise be there. In a physical world of many physical beings
the avoidance of at least some physical evils is an impossibility. This topic is treated more fully
in another essay, but the gist of the issue is that material things are by
definition limited things and this limitation combined with a desire for
self-preservation means that there will always be a lack in some creatures. There is a single piece of bread and two
people. At least one of them (or possibly
both if they split it) will experience the evil of hunger. It is pointless to argue that the world could
have an unlimited amount of bread because that will result in the evil of
something else being lacking. A physical
world will always experience some lack and therefore some evil.
In a material world, one being’s
good can be another being’s evil. Not
all relationships can be symbiotic. The
man who is hungry will experience the evil of thorn pricks from the bush that
grows them in order to protect its berries from being plucked. The virus that causes the flu will embed
itself in a host and replicate for its own good but the host will experience
sickness.
Usually the objection to the
evil in the world is related to moral evils, that is, the evils we bring upon
ourselves and inflict upon others. The
man who overeats will experience the evil of heart disease and the man who, in
protecting his family from an intruder, will experience the evil of being
stabbed. These moral evils may results
from the free will responses to physical evils (looters who raid stores after a
storm for example) or strictly out of malice.
Either way, they are the result of the free will of someone.
A good God may give the
power to use free will, which is good.
But the creatures that have the power may come in conflict with each
other in how they use it. God gave the
power and is in a certain sense the cause of power in the action, but He is not
the cause of the action itself. A man
who sells a gun to another is responsible for the man having the gun, but this
does not mean He is responsible for how it is used.
While we cannot imagine a
material world with no physical evils, we might imagine one in which there are
no moral evils. But this would result
ultimately in the loss of free will. A
world in which all the goods are limited always carries with it the possibility
of misapprehending and misusing those goods.
God could intervene each time someone tried to do something evil, but
this would make free will conditioned and thus not totally free.
Our interlocutor would now
be hard pressed to imagine a physical world that includes beings with free will
in it that does not also include the presence of some evil. Even if he can come up with one, he cannot
prove it that it is more perfect than our own because perfect implies some knowledge of purpose. Just as you cannot speak of a more perfect
pair of shoes until you know what shoes are for, so you cannot speak of a world
that is more perfect than our own until you know what the world’s purpose
is. In fact when we begin to examine the
world’s purpose, we find that it is perfectly fitting that it contains evil
To say that the world has a
purpose is really to say that the world is not an end but a means. A perfect world would be one in which it
prepares its inhabitants for the Real World that is to follow. It must be a world that mirrors the goodness
of the Real World just enough to invoke desire in its inhabitants, but not so
much that they feel completely at home in it.
The Real World is one of an eternal communion of self-giving love. This world must be a training ground that
makes that self-giving love possible.
The limited nature of the physical world such as it is makes it possible
for this self-giving love, but not without a willingness to suffer some lack
for the sake of the beloved. This
willingness must mean that there are actual evils present in the world, even if
not all love leads to also suffering from those evils.
The
Argument of the Heart
What has been offered to
this point is an argument of the head. A
mere “theistic” response is not adequate and only a Christian explanation will
do. God desired to make an “argument of
the heart” in order to drive this point home.
This “argument of the heart” is the Passion and Death of Our Lord. To show the path to the Real World, God Himself
stepped into ours in order to show us the way.
He experience evil firsthand and used that suffering illuminating a path
through this world marked by suffering.
With the Passion and death
of Christ suffering becomes a necessary component of the escape plan into the
Real World. In our suffering, we, in
both a metaphorical and real sense, share in Christ’s suffering. His suffering was entirely voluntary so that
when we suffer, even involuntarily, it signals to us the depth of the love He
has for us. Without suffering we would
not know what it was like for Him and would never grasp His great love. Not only that, but He Who is the one in which
all times are present, is really suffering with us. The Passion is not just a past event but a
current event for Him so that He (re)lives it in our very suffering. He is the Lamb in the Real World that still
walks about as though slain (c.f. Rev 5:6).
The only acceptable answer
to the problem of Evil for a Christian is Christ. The impassible and unchanging God in
exercising His omnipotence and omnibenevolence came into our world and suffered
with and for us. He spoke not just to
our heads but to our hearts telling us the depth of His desire to share His
life with His creatures. This argument
of the heart is at the very core of what it means to live Lent
intentionally. It is the time of
reflecting on Christ’s Passion and coming to a greater knowledge of the truth
of the nature of the Real World.
If there is
one virtue that plays an integral part of Lent, then it is perseverance. Forty days isn’t forever, but it is long
enough that our ability to sustain spiritual intensity greatly determines how
receptive we are to the graces of Lent. Perseverance
is vital if we are to run all the way through the next seven weeks. So, it makes sense as we are going to examine
the obstacles to developing the proper spirit of Lent that we look at the
obstacles to perseverance. According to
St. Thomas then we should examine one of its opposing vices, effeminacy (c.f.
ST II-II, q.138, art.1).
In the previous
post in the series, we called this second obstacle “luxury” rather than
effeminacy. This is partly because in modern
parlance luxury connotes an almost addictive fascination with comfort. We no longer speak in terms of vices but
instead must use psychological terms like addiction. Secondly, because of political correctness we
must flatten our language to remove any words that at least give the impression
that they are sexist or homophobic. Effeminacy,
because it sounds like the word “feminine” and because it connects
homosexuality with vicious behavior, has fallen into disuse. Nevertheless, the Scholastic tradition has a
perfectly good word that captures the exact vice we are trying to describe so
that we can at least rely on its description even if we must call it by a less
threatening name. Whether we call it effeminacy,
luxury, or even “softness” the threat to our spiritual well-being remains the
same.
St. Thomas
gives us a very good image to help us see just how harmful luxury is. He says that perseverance is praiseworthy
because through it a man will not forsake some good thing just because it is
hard. Now a man may actually yield when
things get too hard. That is not effeminacy.
The effeminate man does not yield because the thing is too hard, but because he
is too soft. He is not beaten, but
instead is a pushover. It isn’t the heavy blows to which he yields,
but the slightest touch.
What Makes Us Soft
Who can deny
that modern men and women are incredibly soft?
Compared to men and women from even two or three generations ago we are
chumps. But that is not the point
here. The point is how we are to reverse
the trend. St. Thomas says there are two
causes of this vice. The first is an
addiction to comfort. We are, without a
doubt, the most comfortable generation to ever walk the face of the earth. We spend the bulk of our days in climate-controlled
environments, sleep in comfortable beds, bath regularly in lukewarm water, have
access to painkillers for even the slightest headache, indulge in low calorie
sweets, etc. These are all good
things. But they are not unquestionably
good. In fact, they often are lulling us
to sleep and we need a cold shower or two to wake us up. If we are going to do the hard work of Lent,
we must first become hard ourselves.
St. Francis de
Sales once said, “I am never more well than when I am not well.” What he meant by this is that a certain
amount of discomfort, even self-inflicted discomfort is good for us. Talk about counter-cultural. But that attitude spills over to us in ways
you don’t realize. Try watching yourself
for the next 24 hours and see how many times you choose something just because
it is comfortable. We should choose not
based on comfort but based on strengthening virtue. And just as no one ever grew stronger bodily without
resistance, neither did anyone grow spiritually.
The second cause of the vice is what St. Thomas calls inordinate fondness of play. He mentions this so that we don’t rationalize effeminate behavior by labeling it relaxation. This is, by far and away, the greatest obstacle for younger people (especially men). They have grown up with constant entertainment at their fingertips. They find easy and virtual adventures in video games. The result is a generation that is sure to be softer than all the previous generations combined. And they will be all the more ignorant of them because it will feel like they have accomplished hard things—winning the Super Bowl, landing in far away lands and winning the Battle Royale, responded to the Call of Duty and defeated evil Zombies—even though they have in reality only done so virtually. Only those who unplug from The Matrix and are hard enough to fight the real fights really live.
To avoid becoming
effeminate many of the saints developed a mortification plan. They would examine themselves to identify
those things (all of which were good in themselves) that were making them
soft. Then they would adjust themselves accordingly. Lent seems to be an excellent time to develop
such a plan if you do not have one.
Cardinal Mercier, the 19th Century Belgian Cardinal collected
a bunch of the mortification practices of the saints and included them in his
mortification plan that I have included for your Lenten consideration below.
THE PURPOSE OF CHRISTIAN MORTIFICATION by Cardinal
Mercier
The aim of
Christian mortification is to counteract the evil influences which original sin
continues to exert on our souls, even after Baptism has regenerated them. Our
regeneration in Christ, while completely wiping out sin in us, leaves us, none
the less, very far indeed from original rectitude and peace. It was recognized
by the Council of Trent that concupiscence, which is to say the triple
covetousness of the flesh, the eyes and the pride of life, makes itself felt in
us even after Baptism, in order to rouse us to the glorious struggles of the
Christian life*. It is this triple covetousness which Scripture calls sometimes
the old man, as opposed to the new man who is Jesus living in us and ourselves
living in Jesus; and sometimes the flesh or fallen nature, as opposed to the
spirit or to nature regenerated by supernatural grace. It is this old man or
this flesh, that is to say the whole man with his twofold, moral and physical
life, that one must, I do not say annihilate, because that is an impossibility
so long as our present life continues, but mortify, which means to cause it to
die, to reduce it almost to the powerless, inactive and barren state of a
corpse; one must prevent it from yielding its fruit, which is sin, and nullify
its action in all our moral life.
Christian
mortification ought therefore to involve the whole man, to extend to every
sphere of action in which our nature is able to operate. Such is the purpose of the virtue of mortification;
we shall explain its practice by running through, one after another, the many
forms of activity in which it is manifested in our lives.
Mortification of the body
1-In the
matter of food, restrict yourself as far as possible to simple necessity.
Consider these words which Saint Augustine addressed to God: ‘O my God, Thou
hast taught me to take food only as a remedy. Ah! Lord, who is there among us
who does not sometimes exceed the limit here? If there is such a one, I say
that man is great, and must give great glory to Thy name.’ (Confessions, book
X, ch. 31)
2 -Pray to God
often, pray to God daily to help you by His grace so that you do not overstep
the limits of necessity and do not permit yourself to give way to pleasure.
3-Take nothing
between meals, unless out of necessity or for the sake of convenience.
4-Practise
fasting and abstinence but practice them only under obedience and with
discretion.
5-It is not
forbidden for you to enjoy some bodily satisfaction, but do so with a pure
intention, giving thanks to God.
6-Regulate
your sleep, avoiding in this all faint-heartedness, all softness, especially in
the morning. Set an hour, if you can, for going to bed and getting up, and keep
strictly to it.
7-In general,
take your rest only in so far as it is necessary; give yourself generously to
work, not sparing your labor. Take care not to exhaust your body, but guard
against indulging it; as soon as you feel it even a little disposed to play the
master, treat it at once as a slave.
8-If you
suffer some slight indisposition, avoid being a nuisance to others through your
bad mood; leave to your companions the task of complaining for you; for
yourself, be patient and silent as the Divine Lamb who has truly borne all our
weaknesses.
9-Guard
against making the slightest illness a reason for dispensation or exemption
from your daily schedule. ‘One must detest like the plague every exception when
it comes to rules,’ wrote Saint John Berchmans.
10-Accept with
docility, endure humbly, patiently and with perseverance, the tiresome
mortification called illness.
Mortification of the senses, of the imagination
and the passions
1 -Close your
eyes always and above all to every dangerous sight, and even-have the courage
to do it-to every frivolous and useless sight. See without looking; do not gaze
at anybody to judge of their beauty or ugliness.
2-Keep your
ears closed to flattering remarks, to praise, to persuasion, to bad advice, to
slander, to uncharitable mocking, to indiscretions, to ill-disposed criticism,
to suspicions voiced, to every word capable of causing the very smallest
coolness between two souls
3-If the sense
of smell has something to suffer due to your neighbor’s infirmity or illness,
far be it from you ever to complain of it; draw from it a holy joy.
4-In what
concerns the quality of food, have great respect for Our Lord’s counsel: ‘Eat
such things as are set before you.’ ‘Eat what is good without delighting in it,
what is bad without expressing aversion to it, and show yourself equally
indifferent to the one as to the other. There,’ says Saint Francis de Sales,
‘is real mortification.’
5-Offer your
meals to God; at table impose on yourself a tiny penance: for example, refuse a
sprinkling of salt, a glass of wine, a sweet, etc.; your companions will not
notice it, but God will keep account of it.
6-If what you
are given appeals to you very much, think of the gall and the vinegar given to
Our Lord on the cross: that cannot keep you from tasting, but will serve as a
counterbalance to the pleasure.
7-You must
avoid all sensual contact, every caress in which you set some passion, by which
you look for passion, from which you take a joy which is principally of the
senses.
8-Refrain from
going to warm yourself, unless this is necessary to save you from being unwell.
9-Bear with
everything which naturally grieves the flesh, especially the cold of winter,
the heat of summer, a hard bed and every inconvenience of that kind. Whatever
the weather, put on a good face; smile at all temperatures. Say with the
prophet ‘Cold, heat, rain, bless ye the Lord.’ It will be a happy day for us
when we are able to say with a good heart these words which were familiar to
Saint Francis de Sales: ‘I am never better than when I am not well.’
10-Mortify
your imagination when it beguiles you with the lure of a brilliant position,
when it saddens you with the prospect of a dreary future, when it irritates you
with the memory of a word or deed which offended you.
11-If you feel
within you the need to daydream, mortify it without mercy.
12-Mortify
yourself with the greatest care in the matter of impatience, of irritation or
of anger.
13-Examine
your desires thoroughly; submit them to the control of reason and of faith: do
you never desire a long life rather than a holy life, wish for pleasure and
well-being without trouble or sadness, victory without battle, success without
setbacks, praise without criticism, a comfortable, peaceful life without a
cross of any sort, that is to say a life quite opposite to that of Our Divine
Lord?
14-Take care
not to acquire certain habits which, without being positively bad, can become
injurious, such as habits of frivolous reading, of playing at games of chance, etc.
15-Seek to
discover your predominant failing and, as soon as you have recognized it, pursue
it all the way to its last retreat. To that purpose, submit with good will to
whatever could be monotonous or boring in the practice of the examination of
conscience.
16-You are not
forbidden to have a heart and to show it but be on your guard against the
danger of exceeding due measure. Resist attachments which are too natural,
particular friendships and all softness of the heart.
Mortification of the mind and the will
1 -Mortify
your mind by denying it all fruitless imaginings, all ineffectual or wandering
thoughts which waste time, dissipate the soul, and render work and serious
things distasteful.
2-Every gloomy
and anxious thought should be banished from your mind. Concern about all that
could happen to you later on should not worry you at all. As for the bad
thoughts which bother you in spite of yourself, you should, in dismissing them,
make of them a subject for patience. Being involuntary, they will simply be for
you an occasion of merit.
3-Avoid
obstinacy in your ideas, stubbornness in your sentiments. You should willingly
let the judgements of others prevail, unless there is a question of matters on
which you have a duty to give your opinion and speak out.
4-Mortify the
natural organ of your mind, which is to say the tongue. Practice silence
gladly, whether your rule prescribes it for you or whether you impose it on
yourself of your own accord.
5-Prefer to
listen to others rather than to speak yourself; and yet speak appropriately,
avoiding as extremes both speaking too much, which prevents others from telling
their thoughts, and speaking too little, which suggests a hurtful lack of
interest in what they say.
6-Never
interrupt somebody who is speaking and do not forestall, by answering too
swiftly, a question he would put to you.
7-Always have
a moderate tone of voice, never abrupt or sharp. Avoid very, extremely,
horribly; all exaggeration.
8-Love
simplicity and straightforwardness. The pretenses, evasions, deliberate
equivocations which certain pious people indulge in without scruple greatly
discredit piety.
9-Carefully
refrain from using any coarse, vulgar or even idle word, because Our Lord warns
us that He will ask an account of them from us on the day of judgement.
10-Above all,
mortify your will; that is the decisive point. Bend it constantly to what you
know is God’s good pleasure and the rule of Providence, without taking any
account either of your likes or your dislikes. Be submissive, even to your
inferiors, in matters which do not concern the glory of God and the duties of
your position.
11-Look on the
smallest disobedience to the orders or even the desires of your superiors as if
it were addressed to God.
12-Remember
that you will practice the greatest of all mortifications when you love to be
humiliated and when you have the most perfect obedience towards those to whom
God wishes you to be subject.
13-Love to be
forgotten and counted as nothing; it is the advice of Saint John of the Cross,
it is the counsel of ‘The Imitation of Christ’: speak seldom either well or ill
of yourself, but seek by silence to make yourself forgotten.
14-Faced with
a humiliation, a reproach, you are tempted to grumble, to feel sorry for
yourself. Say with David: ‘So much the better! It is good that I should be
humbled.’
15-Entertain
no frivolous desires: ‘I desire few things,’ said Saint Francis de Sales, ‘and
the little that I desire, I desire very little.’
16-Accept with
the most perfect resignation the mortifications decreed by Providence, the
crosses and the labors belonging to the state of life in which Providence has
placed you. ‘There, where there is less of our choice,’ said Saint Francis,
‘there is more of the good pleasure of God.’ We would like to choose our
crosses, to have a cross other than our own, to carry a heavy cross which would
at least have some fame, rather than a light cross which tires us by being
unceasingly there: an illusion! it is our cross we must carry, not another, and
its merit is not in what sort of cross it is, but in the perfection with which
we carry it.
17-Do not let
yourself be troubled by temptations, scruples, spiritual dryness: ‘What we do
in time of dryness has more merit in the sight of God than what we do in time
of consolation,’ says the saintly Bishop of Geneva.*
18-Do not fret
too much about your imperfections but humble yourself because of them. To
humble oneself is a good thing, which few people understand; to be troubled and
vexed at oneself is something that everybody knows, and which is bad, because
in that kind of distress and vexation self-love always plays the greater part.
19-Let us
beware alike of the timidity and despondency which sap our courage, and of the
presumption which is only pride in action. Let us work as if everything
depended on our efforts, but let us remain humble as if our work were useless.
Mortifications to practice in our exterior
actions
1-You ought to
show the greatest exactitude in observing all the points of your rule of life,
obeying them without delay, remembering Saint John Berchmans, who said:
‘Penance for me is to lead the common life’; ‘To have the highest regard for
the smallest things, such is my motto’; ‘Rather die than break a single rule.’
2 -In the
exercise of your duties of state, try to be well-pleased with whatever happens
to be most unpleasant or boring for you, recalling again here the words of
Saint Francis: ‘I am never better than when I am not well.’ * Saint Francis de
Sales (1567-1622), who is so frequently quoted in this essay, was Bishop of
Geneva.
3 -Never give
one moment over to sloth: from morning until night keep busy without respite.
4-If your life
is, at least partly, spent in study, apply to yourself this advice from Saint
Thomas Aquinas to his pupils: ‘Do not be content to take in superficially what
you read and hear, but endeavor to go into it deeply and to fathom the whole
sense of it. Never remain in doubt about what you could know with certainty.
Work with a holy eagerness to enrich your mind; arrange and classify in your
memory all the knowledge you are able to acquire. On the other hand, do not
seek to penetrate mysteries which are beyond your intelligence.’
5-Devote
yourself solely to your present occupation, without looking back on what went
before or anticipating in thought what will follow. Say with Saint Francis:
‘While I am doing this I am not obliged to do anything else’; ‘let us make
haste very calmly; all in good time.’
6-Be modest in
your bearing. Nothing was so perfect as Saint Francis’s deportment; he always
kept his head straight, avoiding alike the inconstancy which turns it in all
directions, the negligence which lets it droop forward and the proud and
haughty disposition which throws it back. His countenance was always peaceful,
free from all annoyance, always cheerful, serene and open; without however any
merriment or indiscreet humor, without loud, immoderate or too frequent
laughter.
7-He was as
composed when alone as in a large gathering. He did not cross his legs, never
supported his head on his elbow. When he prayed he was motionless as a statue.
When nature suggested to him he should relax, he did not listen.
8-Regard
cleanliness and order as a virtue, uncleanness and untidiness as a vice; do not
have dirty, stained or torn clothes. On the other hand, regard luxury and
worldliness as a greater vice still. Make sure that, on seeing your way of
dressing, nobody calls it ‘slovenly’ or ‘elegant,’ but that everybody is bound
to think it ‘decent.’
Mortifications to practice in our relations
with our neighbor
1 -Bear with
your neighbor’s defects; defects of education, of mind, of character. Bear with
everything about him which irritates you: his gait, his posture, tone of voice,
accent, or whatever.
2-Bear with
everything in everybody and endure it to the end and in a Christian spirit.
Never with that proud patience which makes one say: ‘What have I to do with so
and so? How does what he says affect me? What need have I for the affection,
the kindness or even the politeness of any creature at all and of that person
in particular?’ Nothing accords less with the will of God than this haughty
unconcern, this scornful indifference; it is worse, indeed, than impatience.
3-Are you
tempted to be angry? For the love of Jesus, be meek. To avenge yourself? Return
good for evil; it is said the great secret of touching Saint Teresa’s heart was
to do her a bad turn. To look sourly at someone? Smile at him with good nature.
To avoid meeting him? Seek him out willingly. To talk badly of him? Talk well
of him. To speak harshly to him? Speak very gently, warmly, to him.
4-‘Love to
give praise to your companions, especially those you are naturally most
inclined to envy.
5-Do not be
witty at the expense of charity.
6-If somebody
in your presence should take the liberty of making remarks which are rather
improper, or if someone should hold conversations likely to injure his neighbor’s
reputation, you may sometimes rebuke the speaker gently, but more often it will
be better to divert the conversation skillfully or indicate by a gesture of
sorrow or of deliberate inattention that what is said displeases
7-It costs you
an effort to render a small service: offer to do it. You will have twice the
merit
8- Avoid with
horror posing as a victim in your own eyes or those of others. Far be it from
you to exaggerate your burdens; strive to find them light; they are much more
often than it seems; they would be so always if you were more virtuous.
In his message for Lent, Pope
Francis exhorted the faith not to let “this season of grace pass in vain!” The Holy Father is echoing a sentiment that
we have nearly all experienced. We have
all had the experience of letting Lent pass us by and many of us, despite the
best of intentions, will suffer the same fate this Lent unless we do something
different. We need not just encouragement
but a paradigm shift to see Lent and its purpose differently than ever before.
This paradigm shift begins
with an understanding of the history of Lent.
This does not mean that we need to look at how the Church has
classically celebrated Lent, but to understand where it comes from. Like all the events within the Liturgical
Calendar, the season of Lent is given to make the specific mysteries of Christ’s
life present to us. The particular
mystery attached to Lent is Christ’s forty days in the desert. Christ was driven by the Spirit into the
desert for 40 days of prayer and fasting with one of the purposes being to obtain
all the graces for all the Lents of all Christians for all time. He did this not in any generic way, but in a
very specific way because each member of the Faithful individually was there
with Him. As Pope Pius XII reminds us, “In
the crib, on the Cross, in the unending glory of the Father, Christ has all the
members of the Church present before Him and united to Him in a much clearer
and more loving manner than that of a mother who clasps her child to her
breast, or than that with which a man knows and loves himself” (Mystici Corporis Christi,75). Lent then is the time where we go to Christ in
the desert to lay claim to those graces He had merited for us. We go not just in spirit but in truth because
we are already there.
How We Should “Do” Lent
This understanding not only
changes how we view Lent, but also how we do Lent. Our typical approach is to see it as
something primarily done by us. We come
up with a plan to “give up X” or “do this thing X” for Lent and then try to
white-knuckle our way through it. But if
what we said above is true, then the proper way to look at it is that Christ is
doing Penance through us. The oft
misquoted and equally misunderstood Scholastic maxim that grace perfects nature is apropos here. Grace does not “build on nature” as if we do
a little (or as much as we can) and God will do the rest. It is all done by Christ—“I live no longer I,
but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Lent
is no different.
This might sound passive or
even quietistic, but it is the very opposite.
All grace requires our free response, but it first requires that we remove
those impediments that keep us from adopting the true spirit of Penance that
Christ won for us. We often forget this as
our primary role. And this is why many
of us struggle through Lent. We try to
do Penance without having the grace of Penance.
Therefore our first acts
should be to obliterate the obstacles.
These obstacles are not only interior but come from those unquestioned
beliefs we have adopted from the spirit of the world. These obstacles, two in particular, are the
focus of this article and the next. We will
not fully receive the graces of Lent until we remove the spirits of self-esteem
and luxury.
The Problem of Self-Esteem
Who could possibly have a
problem with self-esteem? To ask the
question is to reveal that we have been infected with the spirit of the
world. For the spirit of the world
always sends us mixed messages, locking us firmly in no-man’s land. It takes some truth and twists it just enough
that it blinds us to the implications of that truth. It usually starts by baptizing it with a new
name. Then the new term, piggybacking on
the old term, is given value by fiat. “Self-esteem”
is a prime example of this.
Self-esteem or “confidence in
one’s own worth” is a psychological replacement for a theological term, dignity.
That a human being has worth is unquestionable. But what has to be questioned is why a person has worth, that is, why a
person should have any confidence in their worth. The world would have us believe that the
currency of “self-esteem” is valuable simply by fiat. But it is not. It is valuable currency because it rests upon
the God-standard. Human persons only
have value because they are made in the image of God and because God has made Himself into the image of a man in Jesus
Christ. Our confidence lies in both of
these things—our inherent God-imagedness and our offer of God-likedness in
Christ. The first can never be taken
away, while the second must be achieved.
The problem with self-esteem
is that it overemphasizes the first and totally ignores the second. The odd thing is that many in the Church have
tried to “re-theologize” self-esteem through the language of “Temple of the
Holy Spirit”. This term is thrown around
as an attempt to convince someone of their own worth. But that is not how either Scripture or
Tradition has understood it. When St.
Paul uses the term it is meant as a corrective to live up to the supreme gift
of redemption (which includes the Divine Indwelling). Tradition has taught that only those in a
state of grace, that is those who have kept themselves unstained by serious
sin, that are Temples of the Holy Spirit.
The language also betrays itself because a Temple, while it is the
earthly home of Divinity, is also, and one might say primarily, the place of
sacrifice. In other words, you cannot
say someone is a Temple of the Holy Spirit while not also calling them to make the
necessary sacrifices within that same Temple.
This leads us now to why the
spirit of self-esteem is an obstacle to the spirit of Lent. It always causes us to overvalue ourselves and
destroys our spirit of sacrifice and penance.
If you don’t believe me, then let me propose a hypothetical. Suppose, to use a seemingly trivial example,
you are waiting for a parking space in a crowded shopping center and someone
steals the space from you. Now suppose
you told me about it and I said “you deserved it.” What would be your response?
I would bet that you would be
angry with me and maybe even accuse me of being unjust. But in truth, I would infallibly be right no
matter what the situation was. How do I
know this? Because God in His Providence
thought you did. Otherwise He wouldn’t
have allowed it to happen. This seems
crazy until we follow out the line of reasoning.
Returning to our hypothetical,
did God know the person was going to steal the space and did He allow it to
happen? Without question, but the
important question is why. And the answer
ought to be “so that I could willingly accept it as penance for something I did
wrong.” In other words, you may not have
deserved it this time, but you never got what you deserved last time. The only thing that stops us from seeing this
is our self-esteem. “The space was mine
and he had no right to take it.” True,
but that is not the point. The point is
that he did you a favor. He gave you an
opportunity to undo the harm you did to yourself when you sinned
previously. You offended God and all you
have to endure is finding another space?
Yes, because your measly sacrifice when united to Christ in the desert
becomes powerful. Or you could just get
stuck in how poorly treated you were and “pay down to the last penny” later
(c.f. Mt 5:26). Purgatory now
is always better than Purgatory later.
So free from the false myth of self-esteem were the saints that they could even practice this for the big things. Not that they became doormats per se, but because they “humbly regarded the other person has more important than yourself” (Phil 2:3) that the only reason they put a stop to it is because of the harm the other person was doing to himself. In other words they would speak up not because of self-esteem but because of charity. In the spiritual life why we do what we do matters just as much as what we do.
The extreme cases obviously
are far harder said than done, so we ought to just start developing the wisdom
for the less extreme cases; not just because they are easier but because they
are far more common. This Lent let go of
your self-esteem and see if there isn’t real growth in the spirit of
Penance. After all, these are the best
kinds of Penance because they are not self-chosen, but come from the Provident
hand of God. When you meet with some
slight during Lent, even if it seems like a big deal, say “I deserve this” and
thank God for forming a spirit of Penance in you.
Next time, we will examine the
second worldly obstacle: luxury.
Without having the benefit of Divine Revelation, Socrates, and by extension, Plato, was able to discover many truths about humanity. Lacking an understanding of Original Sin and its effects however, he also made a serious mistake in the area of ethics. This error is on display in the dialogue with Gorgias when Socrates makes the claim that all wrongdoing is a result of ignorance. He thought that once we know the good, we would automatically do it. Socrates’ ignorance was the problem, but it was ignorance of the Christian explanation of Original Sin that leaves him in error. With the fall of man there was not only a darkening of the intellect that caused ignorance but also a weakening of the will that makes even the good we know difficult to do. No one is immune to this defect in our nature, even the great Apostle to the Gentiles St. Paul, who candidly shared with the Romans his own struggle: “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want” (Romans 7:19). So universal is the experience that it almost seems to be common sense, which makes it odd that the wisest man in Athens did not catch it. Odd, that is, until we, especially those who have earnestly set out on the Christian journey, realize that all too often we make the same mistake.
Why did I single out those who have “earnestly set out on the Christian journey”? Because they are the ones who presumably pray, reflect upon their short comings and sins and do spiritual reading. And, therefore they are the ones that, according to St. Francis de Sales, are the most likely to fall victim to a subtle form of self-deception. They are the ones who, for example, want to learn from Our Lord to be meek and humble of heart. They begin by reading about and meditating on humility and meekness. They expose themselves to the lives of the saints who were meek and humble. They learn all Scripture has to say about humility and meekness. They even speculate what it might look like in their own life.
As all learning does is apt to do, knowledge about humility and meekness brings them great pleasure. Hearing or reading of humility and meekness puts them in a humble and meek state of mind. It gives them, as Screwtape says, “humble feelings”. This pleasure serves as a counterfeit of the real pleasure attached to mature virtue. That is, they become meek and humble only in their imagination. This imaginary humility and meekness helps them to quiet their conscience causing them to leave aside any self-reflection in these areas. They are virtues that have been conquered and it is time to move to the next set. The problem is that meekness and humility, like all the moral virtues, reside in the will and not in the intellect. You must do humble and meek things repeatedly and with ever greater vehemence to actually become humble and meek. You must, as St. James cautions, “become not just hearers of the word, but doers” (James 1:22).
Becoming Doers of the Word
St Francis de Sales issues the above mentioned caution, but also offers us a simple solution, a re-solution, you might say.
“Above all things, my child, strive when your meditation is ended to retain the thoughts and resolutions you have made as your earnest practice throughout the day. This is the real fruit of meditation, without which it is apt to be unprofitable, if not actually harmful–inasmuch as to dwell upon virtues without practicing them lends to puff us up with unrealities, until we begin to fancy ourselves all that we have meditated upon and resolved to be; which is all very well if our resolutions are earnest and substantial, but on the contrary hollow and dangerous if they are not put in practice. You must then diligently endeavor to carry out your resolutions, and seek for all opportunities, great or small. For instance, if your resolution was to win over those who oppose you by gentleness, seek through the day any occasion of meeting such persons kindly, and if none offers, strive to speak well of them, and pray for them” (Introduction to the Devout Life II, 8).
In speaking with many Christians who are soberly trying to live out their Christian call, but find themselves stuck, I find a common thread. They may devote consistent time to prayer, but they do not devote themselves to making concrete resolutions based on that prayer. I find this because I saw it in my own life first. I would religiously (literally) devote 30 minutes to meditation every day and would find that, when I wasn’t deceiving myself, that I had made little progress. That is until I read St. Francis de Sales’ great treatise on living a lay Catholic life, the Introduction to the Devout Life. It was the quote above that made me realize I was not consistently making resolutions and when I did they were too general. And while that persisted I was simply a hearer of the word. But when I allowed that word to penetrate not just my mind, but my will, I began to move again.
The key was making not just a vague resolution like “I will act humble today” but instead “when my co-worker who is constantly challenging me about everything does it again today, I will defer to him.” We might fail, but it was not for a lack of trying. The more effort we make even in failing, the more God responds with grace. Before long virtues that were arduous begin to bring some pleasure with them pushing along further.
Over the last few weeks my inbox has been flooded with this or that devotional for Lent. They are all good, but I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if I simply put into practice what I already knew. What if rather than purchasing another devotional, I practiced greater devotion? Perhaps, you were wondering the same thing.
Sentimentality, as was mentioned in a recent post, is a great enemy to the spiritual life. The solution proposed was to read Scripture with an absolute literalism. In particular, when St. Paul tells the Romans that we are God’s children now and have a right to an inheritance as sons, we should understand the magnitude of such a high calling and live accordingly. We would, however, fail in our quest for living in the truth if we did not also realize that, while this gift is free, it is not cheap. If we are to live like sons, then we will act like the Son. All too often we interpret this to mean “being nice to other people,” “love your neighbor”, “defend the teachings of the Church” or any other one of a variety of (usually)comfortable outward manifestations of the Christian life. But we should read the fine print of St. Paul’s great promise: “if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” (Romans 8:17, emphasis added).
When reading fine print, it is always the preposition that matters. We might be tempted to read the contingency as suffering for Christ, but St. Paul says we must suffer with Him. That one word, with instead of for makes all the difference. It makes all the difference because it forces us to move from the abstract to the real. This move may feel like a gut punch from reality, but in reality, it is a liberation from fear. Fear, as we talked about in a recent podcast, is always future- directed and thus fertile ground for anxiety or avoidance. Suffering for Christ has an abstract quality about it in that causes our minds to wander, sometimes to the great sufferings of the martyrs or losing our jobs because of our faith or any other number of ways we might have to painfully witness to our faith. We begin to wonder whether we will have what it takes when the moment comes or whether it is really all worth that. This causes on to hold back from God, but based only a hypothetical way, because, in truth, He isn’t asking for that thing.
Suffering with Christ has a now quality about it. To suffer with someone implies that they are suffering currently and that what is required of me is to engage. There may be fear of engagement, but I have come to a decision point. There is nothing abstract about it, because it is real in the here and now.
An illustration might help make this clear. When I consider the sufferings of someone close to me, I would do almost anything, endure almost anything, in order to participate in that suffering. Tell me, as a parent, that I will have to suffer with my children, my mind goes everywhere. Well not exactly, it usually goes to the “worst” thing I can possibly imagine. In short, fear carves out its space and there is really no way to deal with it because there is always a chance that thing might happen. It begins to affect how I act—I might be overly protective or draw back—but in order to manage the fear of the abstract, I must change my behavior.
Now tell me that my son has autism and no longer am I handcuffed by fear. There is sorrow for sure, but once the decision is made to suffer with him the fear of suffering for him is gone. In other words, once I am suffering with him, I am now willing to suffer for him as well. His suffering becomes mine and I am on the constant quest to alleviate it.
Just as the both the duty and love of a father drives him to be willing to suffer with his son, St. Paul is really telling us that we must be willing to suffer with Christ in the same way. Just as I feared suffering in the abstract for a loved one (and acted upon it), so too will I fear suffering for Christ in the abstract. But give me a specific scenario and I will enter in.
Suffering With Christ
We should rightly question how is it that we can suffer with Christ, right here and now. The days of His Passion are over. He is both God and glorified man, incapable of suffering. Sure, He can suffer in His Mystical Body, but that is to change the mode of St. Paul’s address. He is speaking from our perspective not from Christ’s. He is speaking about the sufferings of His Passion that we must enter into. The key is to rightly see His Passion, not as some abstract event in the past, but as concrete and specific in the here and now. To do this we will need to turn to the “abstract” St. Thomas Aquinas in order to lay the groundwork for this key spiritual practice.
When St. Thomas examines the sufferings of Our Lord during His Passion, he asks what at first seems to be a stupid question, that turns out to have great practical import. He asks whether Christ endured all suffering during the Passion. It is a relevant question because in order for Our Lord to give suffering redemptive value, He must first experience it. And he must experience not in the abstract, but in the particular. So how, for example, if Our Lord did not suffer burning, could burning have redemptive value?
St. Thomas points out that it would be impossible to experience all possible sufferings, especially since some are contraries. One cannot both suffer having his ears removed and the cries of his loved ones for example. Instead Our Lord suffered all classes of suffering. First, He suffered at the hands of all kinds of people; men and women, rulers and commoners, His fellow Jews and seculars, His friends and His enemies. Second, He suffered “from friends abandoning Him; in His reputation, from the blasphemies hurled at Him; in His honor and glory, from the mockeries and the insults heaped upon Him; in things, for He was despoiled of His garments; in His soul, from sadness, weariness, and fear; in His body, from wounds and scourgings.” Finally, “ in His head He suffered from the crown of piercing thorns; in His hands and feet, from the fastening of the nails; on His face from the blows and spittle; and from the lashes over His entire body. Moreover, He suffered in all His bodily senses: in touch, by being scourged and nailed; in taste, by being given vinegar and gall to drink; in smell, by being fastened to the gibbet in a place reeking with the stench of corpses, ‘which is called Calvary’; in hearing, by being tormented with the cries of blasphemers and scorners; in sight, by beholding the tears of His Mother and of the disciple whom He loved” (ST III, q. 46, art. 5).
Why the Details Matter
This level of detail is important for two reasons. First, because it should move us to love, realizing that Our Lord planned out His sufferings in a very specific manner. There was no mere chance in even the slightest of His sufferings. He knew each one of our very specific sufferings and sought to redeem them. Secondly, and more relevant to the discussion at hand, is that by enumerating the categories we see how exactly we enter into Our Lord’s Passion right here and now.
Look at St. Thomas’ list again and think about your own personal sufferings in the past or presently. Are there any that don’t fall into one of those categories? This means that each of these is a personal gateway into His Passion here and now. When we willingly embrace them as such, we are suffering with Christ. He anticipated what you are going through and sanctified it and all that remains is to enter fully into it to receive the fruit of the Passion—sonship. Big sufferings, little annoyances, all belong as long as we lovingly accept them as Christ did His Passion. Where there is a will, there is the Way.
Do this enough and you know what happens? The fear of suffering for Christ goes away. We become like the Beloved Disciple at the foot of the Cross. We have endured so much with Him, realized so much of the fruit of suffering that we trust His plan, grown to love Him so deeply, that we will suffer whatever comes. He does not ask us to be masochists, but we will habitually choose those things which have more of the Cross in them because we know it brings us closer to Him. Think of Simon of Cyrene and how close he was to Christ when he helped Him carry the cross. That is us.
Now the wisdom of all the saints and their habit of meditating deeply on the Passion comes to light. Each time we enter into the Passion in our prayer, we are in a very real sense anticipating our own role in it. This Lent then let us resolve to meditate upon the Passion as one of our spiritual practices. If the witness of the saints is any indication, then it will be a most fruitful Lent.
In recent years, one of the more popular Lenten practices of Catholics has become to participate in Seder Meals. Their popularity is driven mostly by a desire to express a solidarity with the Jewish people and to understand the Jewish roots of our Faith. While it may seem harmless to participate in them, there are some serious reasons why Catholics might want to avoid them all together.
In an age where the morality of a given act is mainly subject to our intention, it is important to begin any discussion on whether Catholics should participate in Seder Meals with a fundamental principle. St. Thomas puts the principle this way—“external worship should be in proportion to the internal worship” (ST I-II q.103, a.3). What the Angelic Doctor means by this is that our external acts of worship must always reflect our internal beliefs. If our act of worship does not reflect our internal beliefs then we are guilty of superstition, that is giving worship to God in, what St. Thomas calls, an “undue mode” or in giving worship to a false god.
Trapped in a dualistic mindset, many of us would think that our external acts are just that—external—and there is no harm done if you do not really mean them. But intuitively we all seem to think otherwise, especially when we reflect on the witness of the Martyrs. Many martyrs refused to offer a pinch of incense to the pagan gods because they knew this would be an act of worship, even if they may not have believed in what they were doing. Likewise there are those who have been tempted to desecrate an image of Christ in order to avoid martyrdom. All too often the tempters would simply say, “It’s just an image. All that matters to you is what you believe.” Those who desecrated the image were considered apostates regardless of what they may have believed. Not having our exterior acts reflecting our interior beliefs is a form of lying.
The Seder Meal and What it Means to Participate
Returning to the topic at hand, namely Seder Meals, it is without a doubt a religious act. Many of these are sponsored by different Jewish Synagogues or, when done “do it yourself” follow the existing Seder liturgy. A Seder Meal is one of the primary means by which the Jewish people hand on their faith. It also reflects an act in faith in the coming of the Messiah.
For a Christian, that is, one who has faith that the Messiah has come, to participate in a Seder Meal is a false declaration of faith. It is, as St. Thomas said, an act of worship of God in an “undue mode.” While our faith in the Christ with the Jewish people may be the same, that faith must be expressed in different ways. The Jews reflect the faith of Abraham, that is the Messiah to come, through circumcision. The Christian expresses his faith in the Messiah who has come when they share in His life and death in Baptism.
St. Thomas says that all of the legal ceremonies of the Old Law, including the Passover meal, have passed away because each found their fulfillment with the coming of Christ. Each of the ceremonies of the Old Law expressed the expectation of the coming Messiah, those of the New Law reflect His having already come. In the mind of Aquinas, to continue to participate in these ceremonies is a lie and constitutes, at least objectively speaking, a grave sin. Regardless of what one believes, by participating in a Seder Meal, the Christian is professing through his actions that Christ is yet to come.
The ceremonies of the Old Law were mere “shadows” (Col 2:17) of the Sacraments to come. The Seder is but a foreshadowing of the Mass. Why would one participate in shadow when the real thing is available? Catholics are already participating the True Seder Meal, the Mass.
What if I Just Want to Learn More About Our Roots?
What about those who only do so out of curiosity or as a learning exercise to help them better understand the Mass? Certainly their intentions do not change the fact that it is objectively wrong to participate, but still it may change their culpability. This approach is worth unpacking further for a different reason as well.
The problem with this approach is that it denies an important historical fact. Those who have studied the Passover meal that Our Lord celebrated with the Apostles are quick to point out that it differs from the first Passover as described in the Book of Exodus and not just because Our Lord added the elements of fulfillment. At the time of Our Lord only the Levitical priesthood existed and thus all sacrifices occurred within the Temple. What did not change however was that the Passover was not just a meal but also a sacrifice.
Once the Temple was destroyed, Judaism underwent a profound change. Prior to 70 AD, Judaism was much like Catholicism in that they had priests who lead the worship which was centered upon sacrifice. After 70 AD it became much like Protestantism in that the emphasis was placed on worship without sacrifice. Judaism today is not the same Judaism of Our Lord and the Apostles.
In short, the Seder Meal that Jesus participated in the first 32 years of His life is profoundly different from the Seder Meal as it is celebrated within Judaism today. The key element, the sacrifice of the Lamb, is missing. With the sacrificial character removed it now bears little resemblance to the Mass which retains its sacrificial meaning. A Seder Meal, as it is celebrated today, has little value for the Christian for learning the roots of the faith.
Certainly studying (without participating) the Seder Meal as it was during the time of Our Lord has value for us as Christians. Studying the type or the sign helps us to better understand the archetype or thing signified. Rather than spending your time organizing or attending a Seder Meal, you would be better off studying Dr. Brant Pitre’s Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist or listen to Scott Hahn’s Fourth Cup. Although there are more, I have found these two resources invaluable for deepening our understanding of the meaning of the Mass and its relation to the Jewish Passover Meal.
Each year on the First Sunday of Lent, we hear the different accounts of Jesus’ temptation in the desert. Of course the Church puts this before us each year to bring to the minds of the Faithful that it is Christ Himself Who has consecrated these 40 days of fasting and spiritual warfare. Our Lenten practices are simply participations in His time in the desert in which He won many graces for each one of us individually. In His battle with the Devil, He won for us victory over every form of temptation that he throws at us. But one is always left with a nagging question after reading these Gospel accounts, namely, did Satan know Who Jesus was?
There is always a great danger, even in our own spiritual lives, to ascribe more power and knowledge to the devil than he actually has. So it is helpful to look at angelic knowledge in general and the effect that the Fall of the angels had on Satan and his minions. Unlike man, who by nature knows ideas by abstracting from sense knowledge, angels know through an infusion directly by God. Even though angelic knowledge is on a higher plane than human knowledge, it is limited. For example, angels cannot know the future because that belongs only to God. Likewise, they cannot know the secrets of our thoughts even if they can sometimes deduce from our outward actions or a change in countenance. For example, they may deduce we are scared because they observe our heartrate increasing or frightful images appearing in our imagination.
By nature, Lucifer was the highest of all God’s creatures because he had the greatest natural knowledge of God. Although it was greater than all the other creatures it was still less than God’s knowledge of Himself. This share of God’s knowledge of Himself is only available through grace in the Beatific vision, namely to see God face to face. Lucifer never saw God in His essence though because of his fall from grace. According to St. Thomas it was this knowledge (that he wanted (so as to be like God) and could not obtain on his own and so fell. The important point is that Lucifer did not know God in His essence nor can he know anything in the order of grace. While his knowledge is great, it always remains on the natural level.
From these two facts, we can conclude two things. First, there is no way that Satan could have known anything about the Crucifixion, Resurrection, etc. because those events belong to the order of grace. Nor could he deduce anything from Christ’s countenance as to Who He was because He was always in perfect control of His emotions and imagination. Satan could get no read on Him because of this. But what Christ did reveal to Him was that He was hungry and so He was clearly a man who had physical needs just like every other man.
It is Satan’s inability to get a read on this seemingly ordinary man, Jesus of Nazareth, that ultimately causes the Temptation. He can detect something remarkable about Him, but what it is exactly he cannot say. Each of his three temptations that he puts before Christ are really his way of probing into his real identity.
His minions too will be perplexed by Him later on. All the Jewish exorcists at the time invoked God’s name to expel demons. Jesus does it using His own authority. They try gaining authority over Him by saying His name (an authoritative act) and nothing happens. So while they may witness His power and declare Him the “Holy One of God,” they had no way of knowing that He was in fact the Second Person of the Trinity, God made flesh. As St. Paul says “none of the rulers of this age knew; for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8). In essence if they had known Who He was, they would not have done something that would have led to their final defeat (1 Cor 15:24-28).
What this really comes down to is the fact that the Incarnation is completely and totally incomprehensible to Satan. He could not even have conceived that God would condescend so deeply as to take on true human flesh and to allow Himself to experience need and to suffer deprivation. Through the paradigm of his deadly pride, no God that could possibly be above him would stoop so low to raise the “hairless bipeds” (to borrow a phrase from Lewis’ Screwtape Letters) so high. As St. Ambrose says Satan may have known that the Son of God would come, but “he did not think that He had come in the weakness of the flesh.”
In many ways, it is the disdain for His divinity that remains a stumbling block for many of us as well. It seems the more we are in the grips of pride, the harder it become to believe. It is almost as if there is a steady refusal to believe not because it is unbelievable but because it is too good to be true. We need to honestly exam ourselves by asking, “If I were God, would I do it that way?” Only insofar as we can put on the “logic of the Incarnation” can we begin to see the depth of Christ’s humility and love for us. In this holy season of Lent, may we enter into combat on all forms of pride by keeping the humility of the Incarnation ever in sight.
In his 18th Century encyclical letter Non ambigimus, Pope Benedict XIV sought to encourage his brother bishops and the Church Universal to zealously keep the Lenten fast. Not only did he view it as a distinguishing mark of Catholic Christianity, but he also lamented that “the most sacred observance of the fast of Lent has been almost completely eliminated.” Certainly the last two and a half centuries have witnessed a continued decline. But if what Pope Benedict XIV says is true, namely that:
“[T]he observance of the Lenten fast is the very badge of the Christian warfare. By it we prove ourselves not to be enemies of the cross of Christ. By it we avert the scourges of divine justice. By it we gain strength against the princes of darkness, for it shields us with heavenly help. Should mankind grow remiss in their observance of Lent, it would be a detriment to God’s glory, a disgrace to the Catholic religion, and a danger to Christian souls. Neither can it be doubted that such negligence would become the source of misery to the world, of public calamity, and of private woe.”
Perhaps as we plan out our Lenten practices, we ought to examine the practice of fasting once again.
Fasting has a long history within the Church. We know that Our Lord Himself left us by way of example this practice when He went into the desert and fasted for 40 days. But like all things that Christ did, He left us more than an example. During His time in the desert, He won for us as individuals all the graces attached to fasting. As the only Begotten Son of God, He saw each of your Lenten fasts individually and won for you the specific graces you would need during that Lent. These graces become available to you to the degree that you participate in His fast. Thanks to the work of the Redeemer, fasting becomes not only an act of penance but a positive means of growing in sanctity and arms us for spiritual warfare.
We also know that the followers of Christ were expected to fast. When the disciples of John (Mk 2:18-22) the Baptist ask Jesus why His followers do not fast, He tells them that it isn’t fitting for them to fast while He is with them. This is because John the Baptist and his followers fasted both in anticipation of the coming Messiah and as an act of penance. By offering the new wine of redemption, Our Lord was changing the meaning of fasting. That meaning could only be understood once the Bridegroom had departed from their company. In other words, the new fruits of fasting were only available once Jesus’ redemptive mission was completed. Thus fasting is not only something Christians should do, but there is also a uniquely Christian way to fast.
While I have visited the question of fasting previously and mentioned some of the specific fruits attached to it, I would like to examine some of the reasons why fasting in Lent is so essential. Lent is a time consecrated in a special way to penance and the Church has viewed fasting as the primary means by which this penance is performed. Why fasting? Because as Ss. Basil and Gregory the Great point out, the first sin was one of eating. By breaking the commandment of abstaining from eating a particular thing, our first parents allowed all sin to enter the world. Therefore it is fitting that when we fast through the merits of Christ we are able to undo the effects of that sin in our lives. In other words, just as eating universally led to sin in mankind, abstaining from eating can untie that knot.
But wouldn’t fasting from apples be enough? Why does it include fasting from meat? Again it is tied to man’s sinful nature. By way of concession, God allows man to eat the flesh of animals in His covenant with Noah (Gn 9:1-4) because he needs the animal flesh in order to be strengthened in his fallen state. So by abstaining specifically from meat, it once again is a participation in the fruits of Christ’s redemptive act.
Looking at it from Christ’s redemptive act and from the perspective of undoing some of the effects of the Fall, we can see why it is a powerful spiritual practice. But it has fallen into disuse for many in the Church. In response to this, the Church has done all she could to make it possible to fulfill the necessity of fasting while not imposing burdens beyond what the average Catholic in the 21st Century can handle. But the problem is that the average Catholic in the 21st Century can handle a whole lot less than say the average Catholic in the 13th Century. Given the overall increase in health, shouldn’t it be the exact opposite? What has changed is the mindset. While I am not necessarily advocating extreme fasts over Lent, the remedy to this mindset is to actually embrace the Lenten fast.
There is a tendency to think “I can fast from other things instead” and then we set out to be innovative in our Lenten practice. The problem with this is that there is almost always a lack of humility in doing this because, as St. Francis de Sales says, “we will find that all that comes from ourselves, from our own judgment, choice and election, is esteemed and loved far better than that which come from another.” But by acting in obedience to Our Lord’s example, we choose a penance which is imposed from without. This offers us an opportunity to grow in humility by voluntarily choosing someone else’s conception of penance.
This is not to say that fasting from TV, social media or the like may not be a spiritually fruitful experience. As an aside, we should always fast from that which is good—to avoid something like yelling at your wife, is not fasting. What is being said is that these things should never be substitutes for fasting from food. Do them in addition to fasting, not in place of. Because food is necessary to life, the hunger we experience in going without, is felt at the core of our being. We give up what is necessary because we want the One Thing that is most necessary. Those other things, while good, do not share this same essential quality.
In the past, Christians were under obligation to eat only a single meal each day during the entire Lent. Obviously this would be too difficult for us today. Instead we might consider following the current norms for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday for all the days of Lent. When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal. Two smaller meals also can be eaten, although they should not be larger than the full meal combined. We should also consider abstaining from meat in any of those meals. Fasting and abstinence should not be done on Sunday—even during Lent, Sunday is a feast day rather than a fast day. This connection between fasting and feasting, especially during Lent, will also help us to enjoy the Sabbath day all the more. By fasting throughout Lent, we will realize the fruits of the Easter feast even more. May our Lenten fasts lead to great spiritual renewal for us all!
