Run as if your life depended on it. It’s a charge full of urgency, something we’d
hear in a movie or television drama. But
it’s a concept that we can understand; save your life by doing something for
all your might.
But so many things present
themselves to us as urgent every day – even routinely, in a uniquely modern
paradox. But honest evaluation will
reveal that it’s rare, if ever, that we confront a “clear and present danger”
to our very lives, much less do we have to adjust to a persistent one. We don’t have to walk home each night through
woods inhabited by bandits or bears that frequently claim the lives of our
neighbors. The Black Plague isn’t moving from house to
house. The Secret Police do not knock in
the night to “disappear” people. So we
grow complacent.
It is precisely this complacency
that is the threat; and we must flee, because death itself is the penalty. Although habitual selfishness and
indifference don’t leave a mangled corpse every few days, that disguises but does
not change the reality that they are a real threat to our very lives.
This brings to mind the words of
Saint Peter Chrysologus, one of the Church Fathers, bishop of Ravenna (Italy)
in the early fifth century. I read it
every year in the Divine Office during the third week of Lent, and am always
struck by its candor and directness.
There are three things, my brethren, by
which faith stands firm, devotion remains constant, and virtue endures. They are prayer, fasting and mercy. Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains,
mercy receives. Prayer, mercy and
fasting: these three are one, and they give life to each other.
Fasting is the
soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. Let no one try to separate them; they cannot
be separated. If you have only one of
them or not all together, you have nothing. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy;
if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others you
open God’s ear to yourself.
Fasting bears no
fruit unless it is watered by mercy. Fasting
dries up when mercy dries up. Mercy is
to fasting as rain is to earth. However
much you may cultivate your heart, clear the soil of your nature, root out
vices, sow virtues, if you do not release the springs of mercy, your fasting
will bear no fruit.
When you fast, if
your mercy is thin your harvest will be thin; when you fast, what you pour
out in mercy overflows into your barn. Therefore,
do not lose by saving, but gather in by scattering. Give to the poor, and you
give to yourself. You will not be
allowed to keep what you have refused to give to others.
These are powerful words that
remind us that our Lenten practices are no empty ritual or cultural artifact,
but a spiritual practice of vital importance to our health and survival. Yes: survival. The sin that settles in and abides will
slowly strangle us even while we live in this world, and snuff out the life
that endures forever in heaven that Christ has poured into us. Yes, we can lose that great gift; yes,
eternal death can, with our complicity, claim us.
This is the annual wake-up call
that Lent delivers to the clear and present danger that can insinuate itself
into any home, or neighborhood, or soul.
This is the also the defense that Lent provides to rescue us, again with
our cooperation. Fast, pray, and give alms -- as if your life depended on it.
Monsignor
Smith
