At no point in the Gospel does Jesus tell us that if we follow him our lives will be filled with success or that people will like us for it. Quite the contrary, actually! We follow a man who came to share the love of God with the world through healing and forgiveness, but was rejected by the religious elite, betrayed by his closest friends, and murdered as a common criminal. This is not simply Jesus’s fate many years ago, but ours today. “Take up your crosses daily,” he tells us. While there is nothing wrong with hoping for success in our lives, our faith is destined for problems if it becomes an expectation we cannot live without. The road of discipleship is filled with failure; if we demand that our lives be successful, we won’t make it very far.
Some of us may need to let go of money to follow Jesus, but for others, grandiose views of self, unfair expectations, and trivial worries do far more damage to a life of discipleship than anything else. Some of us need to let go of possessions, but others have too strong a grip on safety nets, past traumas, or petty grudges to be free enough to follow Jesus. Truly, nothing is too small or too insignificant. Anything that prevents us from following Jesus with our whole heart, anything that holds us back, is a stumbling block to Christian discipleship as deadly as sin. If we refuse to let go of whatever it is, we run the risk of ending up just like the rich young man: sad and far from Jesus.
“Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.” These are the words most often used as we are signed with ashes. It is a call to conversion, a call to follow Christ, a call to change our lives. Today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew gives us the three pillars of Lent—prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These are at the heart of the Gospel’s message. No one heard this call and followed it more devotedly than St. Francis of Assisi.
Francis took a literal approach to the Gospel. He began with the most basic interpretation of a text, but he didn’t stop there. He began by throwing aside his tunic, shoes, and walking staff, but over time discovered the many ways in which possessions can keep us from seeking God. He began by carrying stones and fitting them into the crumbling walls of Assisi’s churches, but over time he inspired his followers to reinvigorate the Church with the undimmed power of the Gospel.
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” —Luke 9:23
This is one of the three foundational texts of Francis’s rule of life (the others are Matthew 19:21 and Luke 14:26). When Bernard of Quintavalle told Francis he wanted to join his life of poverty, they spoke to the parish priest and, under his guidance, opened the Scriptures three times, a common practice in medieval times. The three passages they read that day express the need to put Christ at the center of all we think, say, and do. If our own goals, possessions, and even families and friends distract us from the Lord’s call, then we are not truly choosing life. In an ideal world, all these things should bring us closer to God— and we should bring them closer to God.
An early follower of Francis was not able to sustain the extreme fasting that Francis himself practiced. Rather than shaming the man, Francis broke his own fast so that his hungry brother could eat. Religious practices can never become more important than the end to which they lead: love of God and love of neighbor. Jesus makes this point again and again in the Gospels. It’s a good lesson at the beginning of Lent. What we do for Lent is far less important than why we do it. The time-honored traditions of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are less to benefit us than to draw us closer to God and improve the lives of those around us.
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31-32).
Francis used this passage from Scripture to rebuke the guardian of one of the houses where the brothers were living. The guardian had driven away a band of thieves from the house and proudly told Francis of his deed.
St. Francis scolded him severely, saying: “You acted in a cruel way, because sinners are led back to God by holy meekness better than by cruel scolding. For our Master Jesus Christ, whose Gospel we have promised to observe, says that the doctor is not needed by those who are well but by the sick, and ‘I have come to call not the just but sinners to penance,’ and therefore He often ate with them. So, since you acted against charity and against the example of Jesus Christ, I order you under holy obedience to take right now this sack of bread and jug of wine which I begged. Go and look carefully for those robbers over the mountains and valleys until you find them. And offer them all this bread and this wine for me. And then kneel down before them and humbly accuse yourself of your sin of cruelty.
We find it difficult to admit when we’re wrong, when we’ve sinned. And it seems the more we try to live good Christian lives, the harder it gets to acknowledge how often we fail. It is that acknowledgment, though, that allows us to find the forgiveness and grace we need to change our lives.
—from the book Lent with St. Francis: Daily Reflections by Diane M. Houdek
“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry” (Matthew 4:1-2).
Our temptations aren’t likely to come to us from a mysterious figure in a deserted place. But often they revolve around the same basic human drives: hunger, emotional security, safety, status, ambition. Many of the stories told about St. Francis reveal his struggles with temptations of various kinds. The message of the Gospel today, like the message of Lent itself, is twofold: “Repent and believe the good news.” We are called to do both. It’s easy to think that the repenting is the hard part. But in all honesty, often it’s far more difficult to believe in good news. We know our weaknesses far better than we know our strengths.
—from the book Lent with St. Francis: Daily Reflections by Diane M. Houdek
A good spirituality achieves two huge things simultaneously: It keeps God absolutely free, not bound by any of our formulas, and it keeps us utterly free ourselves and not forced or constrained by any circumstances whatsoever, even human laws, sin, limitations, failure, or tragedy. “It was for freedom that Christ has set us free!” as Paul writes (Galatians 5:1). Good religion keeps God free for people and keeps people free for God. We cannot improve on that.
—from the book Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps by Richard Rohr
Much derails us. Noise, distraction, an inability to say no, an inability to have boundaries for a healthy self. Our internal worrier will continue to pester us: “What’s the secret? How do we actually practice it?” But that is the enigma, isn’t it? Life turns left and does somersaults when we least expect it. So, we juggle and we multitask. And we want someone to give us the answers. We want someone to balance it all or give us the list. Living in the present, fully alive and wholehearted, is not a technique. There is no list. And chances are, we pass by life—the exquisite, the messy, the enchanting, the untidy, the inexplicable—on our way to someplace we think we ought to be. When life throws us a curve that makes our present moment loom larger than anything else, we learn to shift our focus. There is meaning—consequence, value, import—only when what we believe or teach touches this moment. In other words, it’s the small (and specific) stuff that really does matter. Belief is all well and good, but there has to be skin on it—something we touch, see, hear, taste, and smell. The ordinary really is the hiding place for the holy.
To stand still is to practice Sabbath—meaning literally, to rest. To stop. To savor uncluttered time. To be gentle with yourself. And yes, to waste time with God. The bottom line? I’m no longer chasing what I assume will fill empty spaces in order to make me something I am not. Replenishment begins here: “I am enough.” In our Western mindset, living in the present becomes a staged event—staged to be “spiritual,” as if this is something we must orchestrate or arrange. No wonder we sit stewing in the juices of our self-consciousness (“Am I present? What am I doing right or wrong?”), all the while missing the point.
—from the book Stand Still: Finding Balance When the World Turns Upside Down, by Terry Hershey, page ix
There is nothing small about compassion. There is nothing small about making a difference in the life of one human being. But sometimes, we need an experience that rocks our world. Or, to invite us to hit the reset button. You know, back to what makes us human. To say yes to whatever connects us, as humans, as children of God, as people who need compassion and mercy for sustenance, as people who cannot walk this journey alone. And to say no to whatever divides or demeans or belittles or degrades or incites hate and exclusion. And I must speak that yes, and speak that no, not only with my voice, but with my hands and my feet. Lord hear my prayer. When the world feels small and dark and frightful, it is not surprising we choose to protect our hearts. We do not easily give them away.
This happens when we live from the notion that we carry only so much emotional capital—you know, that precious commodity which allows us to pay attention, to focus, to contribute, to care, to forgive, to set free. So, it goes without saying that conservation is called for. And it becomes our default. “There is no need to spend empathy on just anybody,” we think. “We need to pick and choose.” Or more bluntly, “There are those who deserve care, and those who don’t.” Lord, help us. We lose track of the values that sustain us. There is nothing small about compassion. It is the thread of life woven through each day. As humans—in the image of God—we touch, love, give, receive, and redeem. It’s time to rethink our notion about the scarcity of compassion. This is an affirmation of what is already alive and well within each of us. We have the capacity to be places of shelter and hope and inclusion and healing.
—from the book Stand Still: Finding Balance When the World Turns Upside Down, by Terry Hershey, page 53
