Quinquagesima
As we get ready for Lent (and buckle-up: it’s here on Wednesday), we likely have a number of practices we want to take on for penance. Maybe it’s eating less of a certain type of food, or maybe adding extra prayers to our daily prayer routine, or maybe donating time or money to the poor more. These, in addition to our usual Lenten practices of fasting on Ash Wednesday, the Lenten Ember Days, and Good Friday, as well as abstaining from meat on Ash Wednesday, the Lenten Ember Days, and Fridays should bring us closer to God and put to death the old, sinful man in us who acts more like a toddler and wants immediate gratification always.
But why do we do these things? Does the Church want us to earn our salvation? We can’t. Does the Church want us to go on a diet? Maybe it would be a healthy practice, but our food penances have nothing to do with our waistline. What motivates us to take on penances, not only during Lent, but throughout the year?
The Apostle tells us today that our motivation should be that special type of love we call charity: the love the mirrors, to the best of our ability, the love of God. No matter what we do, St. Paul says, even if it looks like it is a powerful demonstration of God’s grace in us, if we do it without love, we gain nothing. Love, he tells us, has to motivate our every action.
And charity, as a special type of love, does not spring from thinking of ourselves first. When we think of ourselves first we are like Olympic athletes who train only so that they can get an award and beef up their athletic resume or brag that they stand as the best in the world. So many times when we do penances we may rely on selfish motivations, even if they are clothed in generosity or piety. When we act out of the desire to have something for ourselves, we do not demonstrate charity. We are then like the hypocrites that our Lord will condemn on Ash Wednesday who fast and give alms in order to be seen. Instead, God calls us to act out of charity, out of the desire simply to please the Beloved, God Himself, no matter what it could mean for us, or even if we gained nothing at all. True love doesn’t do something good so that I can get something good back. True love does what the beloved wants simply because the beloved wants it, without thought of repayment.
Truth be told, we all probably struggle with mixed motives. Even our best acts probably do not find their entire root in charity, but are commingled with a little selfishness. All too often, we are blind to our selfishness and hidden motives that infect all our deeds. And so we, like the blind man our Lord encountered near Jericho, need to cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” And maybe our selfishness, our pride, our vainglory tells us not to cry out to Jesus, because we’re good enough, or it’s close enough. But we need to persist and cry out again and again, “Son of David, have pity on me!” We need to ask the Lord to help us to see ourselves and see our mixed motives, and then ask that the Savior send His grace to purify our motives and change our self-interested love into true charity, the love which seeks only to please God.
Will we ever fully be there? Probably not on this side of eternity. We will always see ourselves dimly, as in a mirror. But if we keep crying out for God’s help to love as He loves to the best of our ability, then we will see God face to face one day, where our love will truly be selfless, will truly mirror the charity of God.
In this last Sunday before Lent, we should all examine our Lenten practices in the light of, “how does this help me grow in charity?” We don’t have to do them perfectly in charity, but we should strive to do them as perfectly in charity as we can. May we not take on penances in order to look holy, or to seem to others to be pious or ascetic, or even because we hope to get something good out of it, but may our penances help us grow more deeply in love with the one who saves us: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
