A DIFFERENT KIND OF “MARCH MADNESS”

 
We have begun Lent, and I hope and pray that our season of penitence and repentance will be powerful and help us enter into the joy of Easter more wonderfully than ever before.
 
For this reason, I want to refer to this time as “March Sanity”— this is the season for taking deep and honest self-evaluation.  This is the time for seeing things as they really are, embracing some for growth and rejecting others as counter-productive to who we are made to be by our God.
 
Matthew Kelly is famous for advocating becoming “the best version of yourself.”  What does that really mean, if not becoming the person God has always had in mind?   That job won’t be finished until our transformation to incorruptibility and immortality (as last weekend’s Scripture reminded us), but in the meantime, we should want to come closer to that final, perfected being and society where we enjoy God and one another in God (as St Augustine expressed it).
 
One mistake I often make in Lent is trying to do everything positive and give up everything negative all in one throw.  It’s a mistake because it’s a formula for failure—as though I could instantly change in so many ways!  Better to be a bit more realistic in my goals:  perhaps 2-3 vices to try to conquer and 2-3 virtues to foster.  I know mine; you probably know yours, as well.
 
I also remember the warning of St John Henry Cardinal Newman in his set of meditations on the Stations of the Cross (the 3rd fall)—he spoke of keeping his eyes open, looking forward, making great progress: then when he was not expecting it and from a direction he wasn’t anticipating, a temptation came and knocked him to the ground (I have taken this idea as part of my meditation on “Jesus Falls the Third Time” in my Stations of the Cross.  I remember Archbishop Lipscomb recounting the time he read those meditations to Archbishop Toolen; Lipscomb said that at this point, Toolen simply and sadly nodded his head…
 
The other lesson I need to be reminded of is that failure on “Ash Thursday” doesn’t mean Lent is wasted—it’s simply an opportunity to get back up and make the remainder of Lent as good as I can.  This is the central insight of great spiritual writers like Mother Julian of Norwich and St Francis de Sales:  don’t be too harsh on yourself, and don’t wallow in the muck.  Just get back up, say to Jesus “Lord, I did it again, but I want to be yours,” and keep following.
 
There is a hymn that I love (not in our hymnals at Our Savior).  The opening lines are “I want to live as a child of the light/I want to follow Jesus.”  That’s as good a mantra as I can think of, for having a Lent that is “March Sanity.”  Happy Lent to us all!