I Am Not in Control

Happy Ash Wednesday!

Last night I went to bed with anticipation, excitement, and zeal for the Lenten season. This morning I woke up on schedule so that I could begin the Lenten Bootcamp that I enjoyed last year. After a fruitful period in prayer, I took a look at one of the books* that I’ll be reading this Lent and planned out how many chapters I needed to read a day to have it completed by Easter. Lent was off to a seamless start.

Before hurrying out the door to ballet, I began to prepare my one regular sized meal for the day of fasting: two fried eggs and a baked potato. It would give me enough energy for ballet and since I was giving up sweets and gluten, it met my sacrificial requirements. As the eggs sizzled on the stove, I walked over to the pantry to wash and bake the potato.

And I was met by a bag full of white, moldy potatoes.

Ladies and Gentlemen, during the first meal of the Lenten season, I had to break my sacrifice by having oatmeal instead of potatoes.**

The perfectionist that I am was incredibly irritated. It wasn’t my fault, I hadn’t purposely made all the energy-providing gluten-free carbs in the house go bad. But I had still already “screwed up at Lenting.”

Despite the irritation, however, I suspect that the Lord had a hand in making those potatoes go bad in such supposedly “poor” timing. Because while I broke my gluten fast during the first few hours of Lent, I learned perhaps the most important thing I needed to learn as we began this rigorous liturgical season: I am not in control of this Lent.

I’m a leader and a planner. I have natural leadership abilities and planning out agendas is fun and satisfying to me. But in this relationship that we have with the Lord, our place is not to be the leader. Our place is to step back, follow wherever He beckons, and enjoy the crazy, beautiful adventure that He has planned out for us.

This relationship is so important to remember during Lent. Maybe you’re like me and you spent hours over the last two weeks preparing and discerning your “battle plan”*** of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

But while we are most certainly called to give our all this Lent, we’re not the ones calling the shots. Lent is a time to be called by our lover into the desert. There, away from the noise of the world and the loftiness of our idols, He teaches us what love is. He draws us deeper into His Grace and arms than we could ever imagine. He gives us all that we need.

But none of that beauty can take place if we don’t have complete dependence on and trust in Him. That is one of the many beautiful reasons why we fast: to let go of our desires, of our pride in being able to sustain ourselves. It is not to have complete control and satisfaction in our abilities to “do the right thing.”

I don’t know what plans you’ve made for Lent. Maybe you have 9 penances, 7 spiritual books, and 10 visits to various charities planned out. If so, that’s beautiful. But no matter what lofty plans you’ve made and commitments you’ve given yourself, you are not leading your spiritual journey this Lent. Take your plans and use them as fuel to charge into the desert. But then you need to let go. Our God will take whatever you have to offer, whether that’s daily holy hour or giving up Diet Coke, and use it to bring you along the path to Sainthood.

Our job is not to make ourselves Saints. We’re way too screwed up to do that by ourselves. Our only job is to be faithful to whatever Christ calls us to and to follow Him with open hands to the foot of the Cross. And it’s there that He, not your Lenten resolutions, will make you a great Saint.

Keep doing what you’re doing! But let God use those sacrifices and prayers to create His beautiful plan, not yours, for Lent 2018.

*- “The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” by Anne Catherine Emmerich. I highly recommend it, it’s the account of the author’s visions of Jesus’ Passion. The book was the inspiration for much of the detail and imagery of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” I personally found the book so moving though, that The Passion movie wasn’t nearly as emotional for me as it is for other people.

**- I guess I could have just eaten eggs. But that would have been very difficult to sustain me for three hours of physical activity.

***- Credits to my priest and his homily this evening