Our Lenten Pilgrimage: How are We Doing?

Dictionary.com defines a pilgrimage as: “a journey, especially a long one, made to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion.” Thus, this is an excellent description of the season of Lent. It is a journey to the sacred place of Jesus’ passion, death, and Resurrection. It is a journey into the desert. It is not something to be taken lightly.

Our parochial Vicar gave a talk on the metaphor of the Lenten desert and noted some key aspects of Lent that can help us now. The purpose of Lent is to remove what is unnecessary in our spiritual lives so that what is essential can emerge. We discover that we do not need constant indulgence to survive, thus we can learn holy restraint. Lent also helps to expose our own weaknesses and to realize that the spiritual life requires attention. It also exposes the depth of our trust in God. “Jesus I trust in you” is easy to say but takes a depth of understanding and even some effort to accept and live it.

Most of us probably started this journey with good intentions and hopes of bringing about the change that we need in our lives to bring us closer to Jesus. Perhaps we started out with great enthusiasm about all of the things we need to do, so much so that we may have overdone it. Ask yourself what your goal was for your Lenten observance. The desert is not a destination but a pathway to Easter joy.

Therefore, as we are now finished with our first week of these forty days of concentrated spirituality, it’s a good time to look at where we stand. Did we take on too much? Were our goals unrealistic? As Thomas à Kempis notes, “DO NOT yield to every impulse and suggestion but consider things carefully and patiently in the light of God’s will.” (Imitation of Christ)

So what should we do if we find we are already falling by the roadside on this journey? First, we need to reevaluate our travel plan. Was our plan impractical or have we just not concentrated enough on following it? If the latter, then we need to renew our dedication to the plan and identify why we are slipping. If it was merely a lapse or loss of concentration, that might be easily remedied. Could it be our attitude that was faulty – we were looking at Lent as a burden rather than an opportunity. Every opportunity presents a challenge and so our Lenten journey should also be a challenge; but not an impossible one.

On the other hand, if our plan was impractical, i.e., we chose to attempt things that had too many obstacles (especially ones beyond our control), then this is a good time to reassess and make the necessary course corrections to bring us to a better state of holiness and closeness to the Lord. Most of all, don’t be discouraged. Remember, Lent (the desert) is not about perfection; it is about direction.

Perhaps you just started out too fast. Often we need to build up to some goal. We don’t just walk out the door to join into a marathon – it takes time and effort, beginning slowly and working up to it. I was a swimmer in high school and my first swim meet I tried keeping pace with our best swimmer. I hadn’t trained myself enough. Needless to say, halfway through the event I tightened up into one big cramp and couldn’t finish the last three laps. However, I didn’t stop my swimming, I just worked more on my training.

If part of your plan was more time with Scripture, you don’t start with trying to read whole books at one sitting. Select some passages, perhaps based on the daily mass readings, and each day add a little bit more until you reach a comfortable level. Perhaps your plan was to attend daily mass every day. This might require a drastic reorganization of your schedule and so it might be better to do one or two additional days one week then add a day the next. Look for churches near your home or your workplace that might have a mass schedule that can work with yours. Your goal should be to add additional time with Jesus, but that may not be doable without making some real adjustments.

But don’t give up. Lent is meant to be a time of sacrifice. And, technically, your time is not really your own. It belongs to God. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has his leading tempter, Screwtape, advising his protégé to concentrate his efforts on convincing his target human to believe that his time is his own. However, he explains: “The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels. ... The sense of ownership in general is always to be encouraged. ... And all the time the joke is that the word ‘Mine’ in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. ... They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong—certainly not to them, whatever happens.”

And so, a reevaluation of how we are spending or planning to spend our time in Lent is appropriate at this stage. For example, are you regularly doing something that, while not bad in and of itself, may be “spiritually neutral?” This might be something you could give up (e.g., game time on your phone or your computer) to provide more time to spend with Jesus. “Yet there are many things the knowledge of which does little or no good to the soul, and he who concerns himself about other things than those which lead to salvation is very unwise.” (Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ)
So step back, assess your progress and your goals and renew your dedication to getting closer to Jesus. You might ask yourself, “What habit could I forego to make room for something better?”

And remember, Lent, like the desert, is a challenge. If you skip the desert, Easter becomes sentimental rather than transformative. Let us walk the desert of Lent with courage, with honesty, and with hope. The dawn of the Resurrection is coming.

“Time spent in honor of God and for the salvation of souls is never badly spent.”
St. Padre Pio