There are times when I am quite astonished at the ignorance of the learned.
I don't keep Lent for merit or for a reward, anymore than I eat or make love or sleep for merit or a reward, or any more than I offer thanks before I eat for merit or a reward.
The grave peril of the pious, or ONE grave peril, is that they so readily forget the wonder of God's Love. We can turn in a heartbeat from meditation on the love to abuse of family members. Indeed, my hardest evangelical work (And I don't try to make people Catholic; I try to get them to entertain and to allow themselves to FEEL “the Love which moves the sun and other stars.” If they become Catholic, well, cool! But that's not what I'm about) ... my hardest evangelical work is with people brought up in households where the Love was professed — and the wives and the children were beaten.
And, I don't doubt that the evangelical professions were sincere. I just think they were SHALLOW.
And one REASON for that shallowness was the “looking in a mirror, walking away, and forgetting what you saw” phenomenon. In moments of grace, we are swept up in the Love. But then the bill-collector calls. And “straightway” we forget what we saw in the mirror.
Faithfulness is indeed a gift. It is also a virtue, and that means it must be practiced. So, how do we practice? We practice remembering!
And how to we remember in everyday life? We write ourselves notes. We turn our rings around or tie a string around our finger. We do simple homely things to prod our memory.
And so with ashes or the “penances” of Lent. At every meal, my self-imposed deprivation is a REMINDER — not just to remember but to meditate on the appalling mercy of God. The silliness, for such it is, of a smudge on the head is a “prompt” to consider that I, as insignificant (on the ‘merits’) as a streak of ashes, was yet deemed somehow worth the death of the Lord.
Lent is not to EARN something, any more than a diet is to earn something. I am healthier if I control my eating. I am happier if I control my memory by directing it more often to the mighty acts of God.
And if God's Church is directed by his mercy to provide me with companions on the way, and if we laugh about chocolate or sugar or our TV show or what have you, well, go ahead and mock. We are merrily journeying to the death of the Cross and to what lies beyond. A little laughter, even judgment and contempt, they won't hinder us much.
The perfection, as he tells us, of the writer is admirable. But I think that rather than admire him, I will be wily (PS. 18: 26)with my crooked self and with humble and silly tricks beguile it into recalling the Love of God.
You're too kind.
Sometimes it seems some folks wouldn't have a religion at all if it weren't for Catholicism -so they could be Not Catholic.
Quite sad, and yes, shallow.
That all sounds good but how about considering what God said on the matter? He said to wash your face and keep it in secret not make a public display of it by marking your face for all to see. He didn’t say you were glorifying Him by making a public display of it. In fact He said that only if you do it in secret would He reward you.
But nobody is deemed *worth* the death of Jesus. That implies that somehow the person merited that death.
We are both worthy and unworthy of the death of Jesus at the same time.
We are unworthy because of our sin; our rebellion against God. There is simply nothing we can do to ameliorate our condition.
OTOH, we are worthy because we are created in the image and likeness of God. That HE deemed us of worth because of that. Because HE desires fellowship and relationship with us.
One thing I've noticed about the Catholic mindset and remember of it from my upbringing, is the mentality that somehow we can merit (earn) God's favor and approval, His forgiveness and His love, and His favor, all based on what we DO or don't do.
Until and unless people, (and this includes any non-Catholics who think that way) come to understand that God's dealings with us are totally based on HIS character, people will continue to be trapped int heir sins and works based effort to try to please God, to earn His favor and blessing, to appease His wrath - all a monumental waste of time.
I don't know how much you've been following the RF as I have not seen you post in a LONG time, but based on conversations we've had in the past, have you checked out the Tozer threads I've been posting? I think you'd really enjoy them. The keyword is *tozer*.
How are you doing, BTW?