Saturday of the Third Week of Lent
Jesus’ parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee is designed to make us feel uneasy. It should; that was precisely his intention! Lent is the ideal season to hold a mirror to our inner lives and examine our true attitudes toward prayer.
As Catholics, we often take on the practice of good works during these forty days—fasting, increased prayer, and almsgiving. However, it is all too easy to fall into a subtle, subconscious trap of patting ourselves on the back for a rigorous fast, long hours in adoration, or generous donations. It is tempting to glance at someone else’s Lenten disciplines and think, “That seems minimal… I am doing much more than that!”
The purpose of our Lenten discipline is to remove the attachments that obstruct our spiritual growth—to discover and remove the things that come between the Lord and us. These “good works” are merely tools to open our hearts to God, helping us recognize our total dependence upon Him.
God demonstrated the depth of his love for us by sending his only Son to save us from sin and death. Faced with such profound love, we must acknowledge our own spiritual poverty. Rather than comparing our spiritual exercises with others this Lent, we need to examine our lives using Jesus as our only benchmark.
In comparison to Jesus’ selfless sacrifice of his life for us (“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” Jn 15:12), we are overwhelmed by our inability to love to that degree. We can only fall to our knees and, with the tax collector, humbly cry out: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner” (Lk 18:13).
Reflection by Br. Michael Marcotte, OSB
Posted in Articles for Lent, Daily Reflections