March 2025
With Ash Wednesday, we have entered the holy season of Lent, and for the next forty days we will be turning our eyes to Calvary, seeking to unite our own inevitable pains, small and great, with the Passion that saves us. And so this month’s triduum finds us in the most propitious time of year to storm Heaven by adding our little drop of water to the bitter chalice of Our Lord’s passion for all the vital intentions of our monthly rendez-vous.
The will of God is that we curb our vices, because until we do that we cannot grow in the virtues that are required to become a saint. If we are asked to give up some of the things we like, it is so as to come face to face with our own neediness. When we are hungry or thirsty or sleepy, or when we are confronted with how hard it can be to visit and help a sick or handicapped person, we feel our poverty and want, and it becomes nearly impossible to think that we are the saint we might sometimes imagine. In this way, giving up things is a lesson in humility. This is actually one of the tests as to whether a Lenten penance is a good one. Does it help me grow in humility? Does it give me greater insight into my weaknesses? Does it leave me with a deeper, and not superficial, conviction of my own nothingness? If it does all these things, it is a good Lenten penance. On the contrary, if our penance makes us feel good about ourselves and causes us to think we are holy then are certainly way off the track.
Likewise, penance is destined to increase charity. This is why we do not just give up things; we also offer them or their equivalent to those in need. In this way, our sacrifices accrue to the less fortunate. Here we see that any true penance should increase our love for God and neighbour. St Benedict stresses this when he writes in the Rule that “no one should follow what seems good for himself, but rather what is good for another’ (Rule of St Benedict, ch. 72). If only we envisaged every day of our lives in this light, our relationships would improve in quality and our entire life would change radically. This is not easy however, for our fallen nature is constantly pulling us back in the direction of what flatters our senses and our ego.
So let this be our resolve, not just during these three days, but throughout Lent, to grow in humility and in charity, putting others first, ourselves second, learning how to listen to what others have to say, and convinced that there is not a person in the world who doesn’t have something to teach us.
