To read the texts click on the texts: Jl 2:12-18; 2Cor 5:20-6:2; Mt 6:1-6,16-18
The season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and is derived
by counting back 40 days {not including Sundays} from Easter day. Ash Wednesday
is so called because of the imposition of ashes on
the foreheads of the faithful, which serve as a reminder of the call to
repentance and to believe in the good news. The period of Lent is a reminder of
the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert before taking up the mission he
received from his Father at his baptism.
Immediately after the six antitheses (5:21-48) in the
Sermon on the Mount, there follows instructions on three practices that were
common among the Pharisees as a sign of closeness to God namely almsgiving,
prayer and fasting. All three though only a means to
reach God can be made ends in themselves. Almsgiving can be ostentatious,
prayer can be used to show-off and fasting can be used to point to one’s self.
Jesus cautions the listeners about these dangers and challenges them to make them all internal activities that will lead the way
to God rather than being made ends in themselves. The focus thus is on the
motivation with which one does what one does. If the motivation for doing good
is to win the admiration of human beings, then that
action is selfish and self motivated and so does no good at all. If the action
is done out of a sense of duty or obligation, it
cannot be called pure and is instead diluted. However if one does the action
and accepts that the reward is in the performing of
the action itself, such an action can be salvific. This is the challenge not
only of Ash Wednesday, but of the whole season of Lent, “to give and not to
count the cost, to labour and to look for no reward.”
For us as Christians, Jesus has simplified matters. There is absolutely no obligation in the
Christian way of life except the obligation to love. When there is love then
all our actions come from our hearts and spontaneously without counting the
cost. Almsgiving becomes generous and spontaneous,
prayer becomes union with God and leads to action and fasting is done in order
to show our dependence on God and not on earthly things.
AMEN!
ReplyDelete