We are inclined to regard Lent as spiritual spring cleaning. In itself, it is not far from the truth. But the painful cancellation of Masses on Ash Wednesday may just allow us to reflect on what this Sunday’s readings are saying to us. They suggest that we look beyond the “mea culpa” to the existential relationship that we ought to have with God. Both the readings highlight the deep connexion between the creature and His Creator.
If we fail to grasp this fundamental affinity between the Maker and the made, then Lent can stray into a season for self-recrimination focussing on the effort we need to turn ourselves around. To renew, to reform and to revitalise are crucial but they miss a point. Take the cue from the Penitential Rite of the Eucharist. We are used to thinking that the Rite is a moment of remorse for our failures. On the one hand, the admission of sin is necessary as part of the preparation before we celebrate the sacred mysteries. On the other hand, our psyche is conditioned by a “self-made or self-help” philosophy, it can imply that personal merit becomes our precondition for worship. It signifies that we want to be able to stand justified because we feel equal to God.
Nothing could be further from the truth but we are accustomed to this kind of logic and it is reflected in the way we approach the Penitential Rite. “I have been bad. Lord, have mercy”. Or, if we follow the current climate-change campaign, “We have failed to care for the environment. Christ, have mercy”. Note that the Kyrie segues or flows naturally into the Gloria hinting the Kyrie and Gloria are not two foci. Instead, they focus singularly on God alone. “Jesus, you are mighty God and Prince of Peace, Lord, have mercy”. Where is the "I" or where are the “we” in this formulation? Nothing about us. Without taking our eyes off our sinfulness, the emphasis is not even on our sins but rather on the God whose love is beyond our comprehension. The Eucharist is where, despite our utter unworthiness, we worship God because He deserves all our affection. Apart from Advent and Lent, this love which commands our entire devotion moves us to praise, bless, adore, glorify and give thanks for His great glory[1].
Instead of rushing into a slew of “things” to do, the cancellation of our Ash Wednesday services followed by the deep sanitisation that took place on Thursday, fits perfectly into the spirit of the Readings. While the soul of Lent resembles the physical deep-cleansing of the Cathedral, more than that, it shines a spotlight on our relationship with God. Eating fish the whole Lent is admirable or going fully vegetarian is commendable and nowhere am I criticising these devotional dietary practices. Noble as they are, these disciplines are not goals to achieve. God is.
This is exactly the point of the Gospel. Jesus driven into the desert of purification revealed to us what the substance of our relationship with God should consist of. Jesus refused food even though He could have turned stones into bread. He had no problem multiplying bread for others to eat and finally He becomes the Bread of eternal life for us. Jesus declined the power that comes with lording over others. Instead, His strength was to bear the Cross for our sins. Finally, Jesus rebuffed Satan’s temptation to “demand” God’s protection by testing the Father’s love. The Resurrection is the ultimate vindication of Jesus’ trust in the Father’s love for Him. At every turn, Jesus in His humanity rejected Satan because He recognised Satan for who he is: Not god. Satan is not god and in saying No, Jesus revealed two interconnected realities about our humanity. Our souls can be in peril because the nature of temptation is always to rob us of our true identity--called to be sons and daughters of the Father.
During Lent, we will be tempted like Jesus was, to take advantage of who we are: beloved sons and daughters of God. We will be tempted to compromise our relationship with God. Take the ordinary Friday abstinence which has become such a chore for many of us. Self-denial resembles the desert because fasting and abstinence purify our relationship with God. They are not undertaken for themselves. That would be vanity. The difficulty of our Lenten disciplines is a potent reminder that we have a relationship with God which requires our personal attention. The more intimate we are with God, the stronger will the temptations be. Never be dismayed by terrible temptations but take consolation that Satan does not need to tempt those who are already safe in the embrace of hell.
The Temptations challenge our idea of individual autonomy. The accepted principle that God has created us with inalienable rights means that self-determination is at the core of our identity. Aided by scientific progress and technological prowess, we embrace a radical autonomy that manifests itself as the ability to control our destiny. But that is self-delusional because the more militantly we insist on our sovereignty, the more delusional we are, failing to appreciate that “autonomy” is never absolute but is premised on relationship. A quarrelling couple illustrates this perfectly. “I don’t need you” shouts the husband to the wife might speak of independence but the dismissal suffers from performative contradiction. A person who claims “I don’t need you” actually “needs” an audience for the statement to be substantiated. The only way that we have no need of others is to remain silent.
Both the Credo of the Chosen People in the first reading and the Confession of Christians in the second reading are powerful articulation of our relationship with God, which in the Gospel, Christ demonstrated decisively when He resolutely rejected Satan.
Lent provides the same space for our repudiation of evil, for the renewal and the deepening of our relationship with God. There is a proverb suitable to describe a danger and it is this: "Makers of idols rarely believe in them". We can be knee-deep in keeping the rituals but forget that the rituals only make sense because of who God is. Therefore, be mindful that it is possible to mechanically pass through this penitential season detached from God. What is impossible, however, is to love God and not be willing to embrace penance and sacrifice. Lent invites us to put God in the centre so that the ash, the fasting and abstinence, the almsgiving, the prayer can become channels of grace, of conversion and renewal.
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[1] Of course, during Advent and Lent, we “fast” from the Gloria because we recognise the inauthenticity of our relationship with God. That we want to make it right. As the Psalmists lament, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”. (Ps 137: 4). To sin is to live in a strange land.
