“I Want Bacon!!”
Father Peter Fitzgibbons
February 29 – March 1, 2020
Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11
So, we are a couple of days into Lent. This is a time in which we are supposed to discipline our bodies and discipline our spirits by penance and mortification by denying ourselves certain food until Easter, praying more, breaking bad habits, and encouraging good ones. How are y’all doing with that? Still sticking to them? Not so much? That’s what I thought. We are supposed to discipline our bodies and our spirits beginning with the Sacraments we receive – Holy Communion and Penance. So, we discipline our will to make it stronger. We break bad habits and encourage good ones. By the way, bad habits are hard to break, and good habits are hard to keep. The beautiful thing is that when we fall off the wagon, as it were, we can always start over. We can start over at any time. That’s the beauty of it. It’s not a zero-sum game that you have to get perfect. You simply get back up and try again. It may be hard, even though it seemed like a good idea at the time. “Hey, it won’t be that bad…I’m not going to miss it anyway.” But, as soon as you give up something to the world, you will see all kinds of temptation. As soon as I had to give up bacon, I saw all these advertisements for CiCi’s bacon crust pizza and bacon Whoppers. Really? All year long, I don’t think twice about chocolate cake, but once I gave it up for Lent, everywhere I went there was chocolate cake. That’s just temptation.
The biggest occasion for sin is right here between our shoulders. We cannot raise ourselves to heaven by our bootstraps. You may say, “It’s too hard. I may have taken on something a little bigger than I should have.” That’s okay…just make sure you aren’t trying to pole vault over mouse turds. The wonderful thing about doing penance is that you may actually feel better. If you resolve to eat better, you’ll feel better…I’m not a doctor, but you will probably feel better. Still, after a while, spinach gets really boring. Yuck! Pizza with bacon and the crust and everything else is food pornography for me. I’m sorry, but it just is.
These mortifications we impose upon ourselves are important, but they can cause so much pain. Giving up something we love is a hard thing to do, especially when we are doing it just for ourselves. That’s hard to believe, we being the most important thing above all; you’ve heard me say, “I’m not much but I’m all I think about.” Many people don’t stick with the medicine and special diets their doctors put them on. Diabetics have a bad habit of not doing what they are supposed to do even though they may need to have body parts chopped off only to eventually die and not in a pleasant way. But, still they do not follow their doctors’ orders. Why? Because, it’s only about them.
I can find any excuse to do what I want to do. I should be able to eat a bacon sandwich, because I fought for my country! I suffered for Uncle Sam, so I deserve bacon! My heart doesn’t, but I deserve it. To make it easier and to keep ourselves motivated, we can follow Saint James’ suggestion and do penance for someone else. Our parents had that experience when they denied themselves for their children. We often will do for others what we won’t do for ourselves. When we do it for someone else, our love is better. We can do penance for our families or those we love. You didn’t get that one? It can be two different groups. It’s just the way it is. We all have family and loved ones who have fallen away from the Faith, who have done bad things, or who have a serious illness. Take their sufferings upon yourself. In doing so, we imitate Saint Paul in his sufferings…with his crosses. He said, “I make up in my body what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of the body of His Church.” God calls all of us to participate in suffering. Do penance for someone else as Christ did for us. Imitate Him. All those little penances, little alterations, and little gifts for our Lord are meant to actualize what is in the Sacraments. When coupled with the Sacrament of Holy Communion and Penance, we strengthen our love, we atone for our sins, and we strengthen our will. The whole purpose is so that we become better receptacles for God’s love and better messengers of His love.
Saint James also wrote that a person who brings another person back from sin saves his own soul and cancels out a multitude of his own sins. So, join your sufferings, deprivations, extra prayers, and sacrifices to the sacrifice of our Savior for the salvation of souls. Do penance for other people as Christ did for us. Love always thinks of others and is never selfish. So, when deciding whether or not to eat that piece of chocolate cake, think of the people you are giving it up for or really giving it to.
How will you apply this message to your life? If you fall, will you get back up and try again? Will you imitate Christ and do penance for others?