The Fourth Week of Lent can seem like the 13th mile of a marathon. Will I ever reach the finish line? How much longer until Easter?
Maybe you have forgotten your original Lenten resolutions. Maybe persevering until Easter seems impossible. Maybe this Lent has brought an unexpected trial.
No matter where you are during this mid-point in the Lenten season, you are exactly where you need to be.
Whether we have seemingly failed so far this Lent or we have held to our original commitments, we are each called to begin again.
Through the Lenten season, we learn essential aspects of the spiritual life that prepare us for Easter Sunday and ultimately prepare us for our own resurrection after death.
Lent is a time when we are called to renew our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
These elements of the spiritual life are not unique to Lent, rather these practices should be basic habits in the life of discipleship.
Lent helps us to see that our human efforts are not enough.
In his message for Lent this year, Pope Francis said, “We need to pray because we need God. Thinking that we need nothing other than ourselves is a dangerous illusion.”
On our own, we always fall short. At the beginning of Lent, we set out enthusiastically, but by the fourth week, our efforts may be waning. Maybe that even began on day four!
Perseverance and fortitude
Now we are called to persevere, to continue on, and stay the course.
This requires a commitment to begin again . . . and again . . . and again. In fact, this is the beauty of each day.
With each new sunrise, God gives us an opportunity to begin again, to renew our efforts, and most importantly to rely on him a little more than we did the day before.
St. Francis de Sales said, “It is right that you should begin again every day. There is no better way to complete the spiritual life than to be ever beginning it over again.”
These little “trials” of failing in our Lenten resolutions and the daily opportunity to begin again provide the foundation to grow in the virtue of fortitude.
The moral virtue of fortitude is the resolve to resist temptation and overcome obstacles, to be firm in difficulties and constant in the pursuit of the good.
The yearly practices of Lent are the training ground for whatever trials will come in life.
This is not a pursuit of human effort alone. “Human virtues acquired by education, by deliberate acts and by a perseverance ever-renewed in repeated efforts are purified and elevated by divine grace” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1810). Fortitude is forged through the cooperation of human effort with divine grace.
Holy Week
As we continue our Lenten journey, we reach Holy Week and the Triduum.
We walk with Jesus as he is celebrated and welcomed into Jerusalem.
We watch as he surrenders himself to the Father’s will and embraces suffering beyond our imagination. We see him carry the cross and be crucified.
St. Angela Merici reminds us, “When we contemplate the sufferings of Jesus, He grants us, according to the measure of our faith, the grace to practice the virtues He reveals during those sacred hours.”
Each moment of Holy Week and the Triduum reminds us that our lives too will have the same elements.
We will be recognized and celebrated. We will be misunderstood and mistreated. We will suffer and die to ourselves.
As Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, “Unless there is a Good Friday in your life, there can be no Easter Sunday.” This is the way of the Christian life.
The destination
We need to remember we are on a journey. Lent is a journey to Easter. The whole Christian life is a journey to Heaven.
Knowing our destination allows us to determine our path there. We always journey with the Easter joy. Jesus’ resurrection gives us the hope of new life.
“See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? In the wilderness I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers” (Isaiah 43:19).
A new day will dawn. A new springtime is coming. Soon we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday and throughout the Easter season.
Until then, let us renew our Lenten resolutions. (Or choose a new one if need be!) Let us remember we do not journey alone. It is our human efforts joined with Divine grace that brings about transformation within us, even when the outward appearance looks like a failure.
Living in daily relationship with the Lord, we will persevere along the journey, growing in fortitude, and beginning again with each new day.
Sarah Pandl is a member of St. Christopher Parish in Verona. She works for The Evangelical Catholic and loves living in tune with the liturgical calendar of the Church.