I love Lent. Not only for the obvious reasons, but because of the timing. We are over the holiday craziness, we got the new year started off and got back in the swing of things, and even had a month of pink hearts and chocolate and the celebration of relationships. All of those things have come and gone and Ash Wednesday is here. And we can, for what is likely the umpteenth time, begin again.
What an opportunity.
I have no plan for what these 40 days will look like. Like many things in my life, I’m just throwing a noodle against a wall and seeing if it will stick. If I keep it all to myself, it’s not as powerful. Like so many things.
So I’m inviting you along.
For 40 days, instead of giving up some kind of “vice” that I am likely to pick right back up, I want to explore the idea of enough. I want to give up my definition and society’s definition of enough, which has been carefully, meticulously crafted over 51 years of feeling a lack of it. I want to take this season of Lent and get real uncomfortable with what enough is. It shows up for us no matter the topic – work, relationships, health and fitness, money, knowledge, experience, achievements, material things, approval, likes, information consumption, and even love – I want to see how my life changes when I use what I have.
What would happen if I used what I had to achieve the happiness I want?
What would happen if you used what you already had to get where you want to go?
Today in the Hallow App’s Pray40 reflection, Father Mike Schmitz prays the Litany Prayer and reminds us that it is a hard prayer. It is hard. It’s very hard because it forces us to relinquish emotional and mental desires that don’t serve us or God. It reminds us that we already have enough … that we don’t need more adoration, more validation, more esteem, more approval, or even more love. It reminds us that we don’t need to fear humiliation, being forgotten, despised, ridiculed, wrong or wronged, because we are not alone. And it helps us practice not needing to be chosen or praised or preferred.
It’s what made me think of the idea: use what you have.
Come along with me?
The Litany Prayer
Oh Jesus, meek and humble of heart, hear me.
Response after each phrase: Deliver me Jesus.
From the desire of being esteemed.
From the desire of being loved.
From the desire of being extolled.
From the desire of being honored.
From the desire of being praised.
From the desire of being preferred to others.
From the desire of being consulted.
From the desire of being approved.
From the fear of being humiliated.
From the fear of being despised.
From the fear of suffering rebukes.
From the fear of being calumniated.
From the fear of being forgotten.
From the fear of being ridiculed.
From the fear of being wronged.
From the fear of being suspected.
The next response after each phrase: Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be loved more than I.
That others may be esteemed more than I.
That in the opinion of the world, others may increase, and I may decrease.
That others may be chosen, and I set aside.
That others may be praised, and I go unnoticed.
That others may be preferred to me in everything.
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should.
Amen.
