The holy season of Lent encourages us to cultivate a spirit of detachment and mindfulness. Of course, not just any mindfulness and not just any detachment. If you’re like me, you have plenty of mindfulness. Every morning I wake up mindful of the pains in my knee or the ache in my back or the constant ringing in my ears. I’m so mindful of my own problems I become detached all right, detached from our community life and often detached from life itself.
But Lent calls us to be detached from the things of this world in order to become mindful of the needs of our neighbors and the presence of God in this world and in our lives.
Giving things up for Lent has fallen out of favor in recent decades. But fasting and abstinence still have their place. We might be excused due to our age from traditional fasting from meals. But Isaiah shows us the true fasting pleasing to God: to break unjust fetters and share our bread with the hungry and shelter the homeless. There is no statute of limitations on acts of charity.
Giving things up for Lent, in my opinion, has to go beyond giving up harmful things: smoking or drinking or eating too much. Giving up these things have their place and Lord knows I can certainly stand to shed a pound or two---or twenty.
But Lent calls us to sacrifice other things, things that eat up our time and fill our mind. Turning the television or radio on as soon as I wake up in the morning, drinking countless cups of coffee, surfing the internet at every opportunity, reading newspapers and periodicals from morning till night, doing crossword puzzles, Sudoku or jigsaw puzzles might be OK and good in themselves, but done habitually they slowly, insidiously, numb me to life and therefore rob me of life itself.
It’s not the action so much as the routine I need to give up. I can go through my entire day on automatic pilot without so much as a conscious thought as to the flavor, smell or texture of the food I am eating, the aroma of the coffee, the smell of the freshly fallen snow, the coolness of the air on my face, much less the concerns of my fellow Maryknollers here in this house.
This holy season of Lent calls us to decide, not how we will spend the rest of our lives or not even these Forty Days but rather how we will live fully today, which is the only time any of us have in which to live. Each sacrifice, each penance becomes a reminder of how temporary our life is on this earth. Each food or beverage given up makes us mindful of the countless millions around the world for whom fasting is not a choice. And the Eucharist we are about to receive gives us all the strength, courage and grace we need to do something about the injustices in our world.
Above all, this holy season of Lent invites us, through fasting, through abstinence, through prayer and through sacrifice, to be ever mindful of each precious moment of life, the needs of our neighbors and the presence, the love, the mercy of God that surround us.
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