It’s a beautiful day in Hawaii. As many of you read this I will be doing a little work in Hawaii with Worldwide Marriage Encounter and while I write this in the airplane on the way, the weather app tells me it will be in the mid 70’s every day….slightly cloudy and breezy…in other words Hawaiian weather.
I’m not a great traveler…I don’t like flying too much and the double blessing of flying over water is not my cup of tea and yet I appreciate the gift of rapid nature of getting from one place to another that air travel gives us. I also appreciate the forced seclusion of the flight…no texts, no emails, no phone calls…just the quiet giving me the opportunity to read, reflect on the words and then continue. It is a forced discipline I wish I could follow more readily in the comfort of the rectory.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen in a short essay on love reminded us that there are two types of love: the love of an egoist and the love of sacrificial life. (I’m sorry that haven’t brought the book with me so I have to do a little of this my memory.) The Egoist in Archbishop Sheen’s understanding is one who grasps at love only for what it can give her/him, using the other person for satisfaction and solely an object of desire never the subject of gift. The alternative…sacrificial love…desires to serve the other and offer dignity and trust in giving without the need of recompense in seeing the other as equal and fully alive. It is here we see the gift of love in the example of Jesus Christ.
This gift of love is what we will be offered beginning next Wednesday…Ash Wednesday…as we begin our Lenten journey as we fast, pray and give alms. It is in the act of sacrificial love that we are able to grow in the spiritual good that comes from our Lenten discipline. Often time we can fall into some forms of laziness and expect God to do all the work of Lent.
For example, I know some people who choose to use their Lenten “fast” as a quick weight loss plan. There is nothing wrong with loosing a little weight during Lent (I sure could loose a few) but when this becomes the only good or the main focus then we can fail to allow God to enter the dark spaces of our lives that our fasting is meant to empty and be healed. It is in the offering of our lives to God, in sacrificial love where we allow our fast to become an act of love towards the other in God.
We see the same thing prayer where we add time or repetition without a direction or intention to the good of others. Our prayer should become an act of love towards the person(s) or intention offered.
And of course in almsgiving we see how our acts of service, our financial gifts need to be focused caring for the other. All to often we can begin to expect a “reward” for our good work and our financial gifts where the egoism of love begins to take over our hearts and spiritual work. Almsgiving is a true donation of self…the giving unfettered from the desire for return.
Please begin to prepare for Lent…don’t let it sneak up on you without asking God what you are called to share this Lenten season.
See you in the Eucharist.
God Bless
Fr. Mark