Lent, Laws, Love

We had a wonderful opportunity today, as part of our diaconal community, to meet and chat with our diocesan Bishop. This is a once-a-year meeting, where he sits down first with the wives, and then with the deacons and deacon candidates themselves. He thanked all of us for the sacrifices that we make, both as deacons and as the families that share our husbands for ministry. He also gave us the opportunity to ask him questions.

One woman asked him what she could say to people in her parish who question her son’s decision to begin preparation for priesthood. She said, with tears in her eyes, that no one ever questioned their daughter’s choice of career. But when told their son is starting seminary, instead of saying "that's great!" right away they say something like “well, that’s not for certain, you know.”

The Bishop suggested to this woman that she help them to understand that her son’s decision to enter seminary is his response to a perceived call from God, and thus the Holy Spirit ultimately will work in and through him to have the strength to live out that call, whatever its demands.

During the morning (especially during our worship time together) I was thinking about this Lent, this blog, and what I am trying to do.

It feels hard to write about my experience of Lent without sounding like I am mostly concerned with following a bunch of Lenten laws, just doing what’s on my list: prayed? Check. Fasted? Check. Act of charity? Check. And that’s NOT it at all; legalism has NEVER been my style.

Instead, I have learned how important it is to push my spiritual boundaries, to set goals for myself. If nothing else, those goals make me aware of how much I need God, how limited I am in my own ability to be the kind of Christian and person (i.e., Christ-like) that God wants me to be. This is not about “works righteousness” but about faith with works – a living faith, as St. James says. In many ways it is about living out the call of every Christian, the call to holiness, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

I do not want to live my days in a kind of foggy blur of whatever. I want to be acutely conscious that I am called to a high set of standards, standards that are not that easy to meet. My motivation? There’s my theme for Lent again: to love better.