Lenten Reflections: Week 3

This is our third reflection for Lent on what I’ve been calling a meaningful life. I said that the path of a meaningful life is one which rejects money, power, pleasure, and fame as the means of happiness. A meaningful life is one which is patterned on Jesus Christ who in self-sacrificing love brought good out of the chaos of evil and sin. Since the Holy Spirit, which comes from Christ, dwells in us, we share in the divine life already to some degree, and thus our capacity to be agents of good in our own life and in the lives of those around us has tremendous potential. Who is to say how much good any one of us might accomplish? It must begin in our own lives first, however, because the Lord Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We need to love ourselves first, that is, to seek for our own self what is for our own good. Love in the Bible is not emotion, it is willing what is good for another. Sometimes you need to step back and think of yourself as a person worth taking care of. The highest good is to love God with your whole mind, heart, and strength and conform our lives to that love. 

If we have this great capacity, then why do many people not embark on the adventure of a meaningful life? I truly do think it is an adventure. It certainly looks the opposite of playing video games endlessly, or watching porn, or going to a party and drinking until you can’t remember things, or calculating how to make the most money by whatever means. That isn’t an adventure, that is just self-indulgence in the very things which cannot bring about happiness. You won’t be happy, and no one will care once you are dead.  

There is no age limit for following the adventure of living a meaningful life. I’m too young or too old might come up as an excuse for not following the adventure. That is, however, nonsense. There is no age limit for speaking truth and acting toward the good. Everyone over the age of reason has a conscience which holds up an ideal suitable for that person. Both young and old know when we don’t live up to it. 

Habit is another reason why people don’t follow the adventure. We get stuck in the day-to-day of life and caught up in the cultural norms of the times which tell us, so often, how to live and what to think. Certainly, one of the reasons for the disciplines of Lent, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, is to break us out of the day-to-day and challenge the cultural norms. Lent is a particularly good time to examine one’s own life but also to examine the culture and what our society says is of value. You can see why the prayer, fasting, and charity are not just words we use but means to discern proper living. 

Two big things which hold us away from a meaningful life are fear and sin. I’ll continue with those in the next reflection.