We all have our traditions for the big holidays of Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year’s, and birthdays. And, of course, our church’s worship and sacraments are filled with traditions and rituals, some breathtaking in their beauty and splendor. We are well into our Lenten observance with its particular traditions and observances, such as fasting and not eating meat on Fridays. Of course, let’s not forget the one: what should I give up for Lent this year? Traditions and rituals condense the mystery and spiritual meaning into very human and touchable terms and give us a certain sense of security and consistency that we can count on.
While our traditional observances and rituals can serve as cherished reminders of the importance of our faith, Jesus nonetheless warns us about them. The Hebrew washing of hands observance before one eats was not out of concern for personal hygiene. It was an elaborate ritual full of deep religious symbolism that misled the Pharisees into thinking that the ritual itself was their faith. For Jesus, that was just lip service. The Gospel message reminds us that if we are not careful, we can fall into the inclination to reduce our faith and relationship with God into mere protocols and procedures. Jesus calls us to look beyond them or deeper into them to see the reality of our faith, which is about a living and loving God and not in some devotion to observances or rituals.
What if we really did “change our minds” this Lent, and rather than giving up the traditional chocolate, French fries, or booze for Lent, we try giving up that old worn-out story about ourselves that we are somehow entitled to more respect and appreciation that we are being offered, that our opinion is somehow more valuable, more correct than others, that we are too busy saving ourselves to take time to pray or sit in silence before our God, or that our insecurity, shame, remorse, and self-centeredness are somehow unworthy or undeserving of the embrace of God’s love and mercy.
What if this Lent, we truly fell in love with Jesus, followed him into the desert of our being, and faced the inner demons of our false self that prevent us from being who we are in Christ? What if we lovingly walked into the wilderness of our souls and the shadows and solitude of our hearts and made an inner space for grace, where there is nothing to prove and nothing to protect? The space where I am who I am, and that is enough.
As we continue our Lenten journey, perhaps the following reflection by Jesuit Pedro Arrupe on the power of God’s love to change our minds and discover our true selves in Christ will be of help on our journey:
Nothing is more practical than
finding God,
than falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
Visitor Reflections