A Lenten Pause

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A hard, joyful word from St. Josemaria Escriva:

from The Way

17 Don't succumb to that disease of character whose symptoms are insonstancy in everything, thoughtlessness in action and speech, scatter-brained ideas: superficiality, in short.

Mark this well: unless you react i time--not tomorrow: "Now!"--that superficiality which each day leads you to form those empty plans (plans 'so full of emptiness') will make of your life a dead and useless puppet.

We can be pushed to and fro by the winds of self and slavish devotion to our own awkward notions of things. As our notions change, so to do our whims, our directions, our motivations, our path of life. Ultimately we do as Dante says of Dame Fortune: "Her changes change her changes endlessly." We become mere avatars of change, waffling, uncertain, and unhappy.

The discipline of Lent is the beginning of a discipline of life that can help us to alter those circumstances. We can choose not to succumb to whatever wind passes our way. We can choose to adhere closely to the truth and not be driven forward on an endless journey seeking our own ends. Simple, humble obedience and a constant recourse to the Lord in prayer and our lives become something other than what they were. We move on toward life. Or we cleave to our own ends and wind up with a life that is truly as meaningless as the postmodernists would tell you it is. The choice rests with each one of us because God's grace alone is sufficient.

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This page contains a single entry by Steven Riddle published on March 3, 2006 1:43 PM.

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