Back to "Regular" Lent After a Rosy Laetare Sunday
We've enjoyed the respite provided by our rose-colored Laetare Sunday liturgy. Now it's back to "regular" Lent.
However we observed this break from our usual discipline (and let's hope we did notice Laetare Sunday!), we quickly come back down to earth this week. Lent is not over. We're still almost three weeks before Easter.
And next week begins Passiontide, a time when we intensify our penitential spirit and practices in anticipation of Our Lord's Passion and Death on the Cross.
Our Lenten discipline may remind us of our work discipline in some ways. Of course, we should always bring a spiritual discipline with us to work, as we've discussed so many times. But Lent intensifies the penitential part of our discipline. And so it can, at times, seem more difficult.
So to with our work discipline. There are days - even long stretches of days - when things flow relatively smoothly. The demands on our time and attention feel lighter. Then there are times - for so many reasons - when those demands step up and we're under the gun. Mental or physical breaks shorten as the tasks at hand require more intense concentration and effort.
Even running a small business has its ups and downs, heavier and lighter days. While a one-man shop keeps us on our toes almost 24/7, still the variation from heavy to light an back again applies.
With this in mind, leaving the rosy light and anticipatory joy of Laetare Sunday, it's time to double down as we both resume our usual Lenten discipline and now anticipate Passiontide. We're in a heavier, more intense stretch.
And if work flow has also intensified, it may be particularly challenging to remain faithful to our Lenten practices.
Fr. Francis LeBuffe has written on what he calls our "running fight." It seems appropriate for this week. It will remind us that our spiritual life will always remain a struggle. Notice how he catches our attention by referencing our Lenten resolve to somehow improve, change, reform, with the help of our Lenten discipline.
“‘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." - Fr. Francis LeBuffe, S.J.
We adore Thee O Christ and We Bless Thee
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