3rd Sunday of Lent Specific Advice to Keep Sunday - and All of Lent - Holy
It's the 3rd Sunday of Lent, this year on March 2oth. We've been working on our Lenten discipline since Ash Wednesday, this year March 2nd. So it's been almost 3 weeks. How are things going?
These 40 days of Lent go on a bit don't they? And in the course of a Lent, we may sometimes flag a bit in our initial enthusiasm and attention to our resolutions, whatever they might be. On this end, the giving up or fasting stuff isn't so tough. And so it's rare that there's a slip up. But it's another story when it comes to commitments to acts of charity, whether almsgiving or being actively charitable in our words and actions towards others - particularly our loved ones.
For example, it seems the closer the family member, the more exposed they are to those impulses that result in a lack of charity in words and actions. It could be something as simply as a sharp rebuke to a request to lend a hand with something right now. How dare they ask when they can see how busy I am with...well, whatever seems so important in the moment.
Charity takes work - at least for most of us non-saints.
So it's understandable if, upon recognizing our short-comings, we who take Lent seriously become determined to not simply repair what needs fixing, but even to eliminate that which keeps undermining our efforts in the first place. And what might that Great Under-Miner be? Self.
Yes, good old - or rather bad old - self. With Lent almost half over, we've still got time to get rid of self, right?
But wait. Praiseworthy as this impulse may be, is it really something we'll likely accomplish by the end of Lent? Haven't we made past attempts with little luck? If so, Fr, Francis LeBuffe has some sage advice for us on this 3rd Sunday of Lent:
“‘I shall break my neck to get rid of self by Easter,’ was the unwitting remark at Ash Wednesday-tide of one whose self was so firmly entrenched that is was quite a safe wager that the neck would be adequately broken in half-a-hundred places before self ever were gotten rid of. It was a good desire, the attainment of which would have brought much peace within and around, but it was a futile desire. To curb a few manifestations of self ‘by Easter,’ to be a little less self-centered ‘by Easter,’ to be a little, a wee little, less self-willed ‘by Easter,’ would have been a consummation devoutly to be wished for, and a most laudable and most practical attempt. But ‘to get rid of self by Easter,’ that was a task that would need a veritable miracle of grace, a re-fashioning from on high – and, while putting no limits to God’s grace or to His goodness, there was small reason for expecting such a re-vamping of an entire life. How remarkably foolish we are at times in our resolves! We note, disgustedly, some defect we thought we had corrected long ago, or some fault we never dreamed that we had. Then in the noontide of our wrath against self and in the full grip of our humiliation at the consciousness of our faultiness, we swear a mighty oath that never, no, never, never again will we ever, in any way, at any time, be guilty of such baseness. We will be done with it all at once and definitely and decisively. That resolve is good; but, if we expect that such a resolve has definitely settled the matter, we are doomed to bitter disappointment. With the deep-seated faults of temperament and character we must be resigned to what is called ‘a running fight.’ That is the way God has seen fit to have us win our way to Him, unless, of course, a rich avalanche of grace sweeps us immediately into sanctity.
“Self-conquest is indeed ‘a running fight.’ It means dealing self a blow here, and striking down the head of pride there, and prodding out selfishness in yet another corner of our life. … We should like to make one great resolve – and thereafter to be saints. But it hurts to begin today, and then begin again tomorrow and then on another morrow to start out all over again. We do advance, of course, and we do carry the war further and further into the enemy’s country, but the old tendency keeps up such a running fight to have its own way that we find it hard to realize we have beaten it back at all. Dear Lord, I want to conquer self and to be rid of all my faults. That ‘the life of man upon earth is a warfare’ is fearfully true, and the sad part of it is that we do not win out in a single fight. It means a struggle today and tomorrow and then another morrow, and there is never any truce. I do not want to yield or run away; and so I beg of You to give me much grace, no matter how weary I am, to keep up, with You and for You, this running fight for my soul.”
Father's realistic assessment of the real battle for self-conquest ought not discourage us. Rather, we take away a deeper understanding of how we fight self and how long it takes to do so - a lifetime.
Of course, you have to start sometime and somewhere. Sunday provides the time. And wherever we are at this moment on this Sunday, that's where we start - over and over and over again.
We adore Thee O Christ and we bless Thee,
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