So much shallow thought about Lent. It sounds fairly easy to say I'll give up Chocolate or TV viewing for a period or maybe fast from meat- but is that what it is all about?
I was challenged reading Henri Nouwen's discussion of humility and the need for me to seek 'downward' NOT 'upward' mobility. Everytime I start to want more things, or to be popular, in control or to get power for myself I am facing the same temptations as Jesus did (Luke ;4;1-14). Indeed we all are faced with these choices and mostly we give in. Certainly the Church has been doing it over the centuries-riches, control and power and popularity of preachers-.
So I was very interested to be told of Fr Joe Boland's homily on the first Sunday of Lent which ends-
Reaching out to the poor, feeding the hungry, embracing the call to conversion, being witnesses to the presence of Jesus in the world and sharing the Good News of the Gospel with the people of our time are not easy, and most of us will have heard that same gentle, persuasive reassuring voice whispering the same lie in our ears. “Don’t worry. God understands. He doesn’t really expect you to do these things. Other folk don’t have to do it, so why should you? Just keep saying your prayers and coming to Mass. That’s all you need”
To live like everybody else: that’s the great temptation for Christians today. To do what everybody else is doing: to accept without question the shallow, superficial values of a consumer-driven society seemingly bent on self-destruction: to run away from that unique personal call of God to intimacy which lies at the heart of faith and do instead what everybody else is doing.
See
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