A Lenten Re-Prioritization

Fifth Sunday of Lent

What could we do without in our life?  I always joke that there is never a time that I want a nice, juicy steak more than on a Friday, especially a Friday of Lent.  And why is that the case?  Because I can’t have it.  It’s forbidden fruit syndrome: wanting something that we can’t have, simply because we can’t have it.  And yet, if abstaining from meat on Fridays has taught me anything, it is that I don’t have to eat meat on Fridays.  I can give up something which isn’t bad for the good of knowing what is truly important.  And getting what I want whenever I want it is not always good.

There is a trend right now called minimalism.  It’s a way of living where you get rid of all the things that you don’t need (and maybe even some things you think you need!).  I know that charitable organizations have been the happy recipients of an increase in donations of clothes and objects since this trend took off.  But it helps a person realize what is most important in his or her life.

St. Paul today in our second reading talks about considering everything else as a loss and as rubbish, compared to the good of knowing Jesus Christ.  St. Paul had a pretty good life.  He was a Jew, and yet a Roman citizen because he was born in Tarsus.  He was a Pharisee, and was very convinced in his faith.  He was also a tent-maker, so he could make money on the side if he needed.  But yet, after that fateful day on the road to Damascus, when the Lord revealed Himself to Paul and called him to be an apostle, his life was turned upside-down.  He was rejected by the Pharisees, attacked by many people for preaching about Jesus, expelled from synagogues, and it eventually led to him being taken to Rome as a prisoner, and being beheaded for being Christian.  But, in spite of all that, Paul considered everything that came before as trash in comparison to knowing Jesus and being in a relationship with Him.  

I can imagine that the woman caught in adultery that we heard about in today’s Gospel also valued her relationship with Jesus.  In fact, Jesus saved her life.  We know the story: she was caught in adultery, dragged in the middle of a crowd, and people were preparing to stone her.  Jesus was tested by the scribes and the Pharisees, the friends of St. Paul, to see if He would uphold the law of Moses.  Instead, Jesus forgave her, and told her to go and sin no more.  And, though we know nothing else of that woman, I am going to bet that she did just that, did not return to adultery, because she believed in Jesus and experienced His love.  

When we are loved by Jesus, when we encounter Him, if we truly encounter Him, then it has the power to change our life.  We re-evaluate everything in light of the love of God.  That’s not easy.  The love of God is never satisfied with the mediocrity for which we so often settle in our faith life.  The love of God always desires us to be more like God, because that’s how He created us.  Sometimes becoming more like God, what we mean when we say conversion, is painful, because we have to put certain aspects of our life behind us.  There were actually professions that people had to leave in the early church if they wanted to become baptized, which included acting and being a soldier (because those both required worshipping false gods).  I’m sure there were other professions, too, not so normalized today, that people gave up in order to follow Jesus.  Could we do it?

St. Paul and the woman caught in adultery were transformed by the power of Jesus’ love.  Every time we go to confession, we have the same opportunity to be forgiven by Jesus for every sin that we have committed.  Every time we come to Mass, we have the opportunity to encounter that same Jesus and eat His flesh and drink His blood.  If we are open to God’s grace, those encounters can change our life.  They can cause us to re-evaluate our priorities, and get rid or minimalize the things that don’t matter as much.

There are two things that I think are valued right now by many people, and may be valued too much.  One of those things is sports.  I love sports; I love watching sports; I used to love playing sports.  Sports teaches great lessons that are helpful in life, and can even be helpful in our faith life.  But it has become a number one priority for many people.  Sports for some is more important than encountering Jesus on the day He rose from the dead: Sunday.  Sports is valued more than Jesus; that’s what skipping Mass on Sunday means.  

The other value that is more important to God for many people is personal preference or the personal will.  We want God to be God on our terms; we want to encounter God on our terms; we want the world to revolve around us.  It is no longer revolutionary to say that the sun is the center of our solar system.  It is revolutionary to say that each person is not the center of the universe.  When we decide what parts of God’s teaching that we want to follow, and what parts we want to ignore because it interferes with our lifestyle and our conveniences, then we value our own will, our own desires, ahead of God.  

Lent is our perfect time to re-prioritize our life.  Lent is the time to put God back as the most important part of our life.  Can we say with St. Paul that our relationship with Jesus Christ our Lord is the supreme good in our life?