I was listening to Dr. Scott Hahn’s latest podcast posting on The New Evangelization During Lent, when his recount of a particular speech grabbed my attention. He was presenting at the 2015 World Meeting of Families at the Vatican, and had just introduced an unusual speaker for a Catholic conference: Pastor Rick Warren, a Southern Baptist preacher whose most famous book, The Purpose Driven Life, might be familiar to you.
The words he shared on that day were received with thunderous applause, and their remarkable cadence inspired the following layout (with a little rephrasing):
In today’s society,
materialism is idolized,
immorality is glamorized,
truth is minimized,
sin is normalized,
divorce is rationalized,
and abortion is legalized.In TV and movies,
crime is legitimized,
drug use is minimized,
comedy is vulgarized,
and sex is trivialized.In movies,
the Bible is fictionalized,
churches are satirized,
God is marginalized,
and Christians are demonized.The elderly are dehumanized,
the sick are euthanized,
the poor are victimized,
the mentally ill are ostracized,
immigrants are stigmatized,
and children are tranquilized.In families around the world,
our manners are uncivilized,
speech is vulgarized,
faith is secularized,
and everything is commercialized.Unfortunately…
Christians, you and I, are often disorganized and demoralized,
our faith is compartmentalized,
and our witness is compromised.So what do we need?
For our worship to be revitalized,
our differences to be minimized,
our members to be mobilized,
the lost to be evangelized,
and our families to be re-energized.
Doesn’t it just make you want to
get out of your chair,
pump your fists in the air,
and yell “YES LORD, I’M THERE!”?
Or are you in the middle of your Ash Wednesday fast,
your energy flagging,
your stomach rumbling,
your will to continue crumbling?
I’ve learned the hard way that the Lord will give me what I need when I need it, not what I want when I want it. In this case, it was in the form of Laura Vanderkam’s Before Breakfast podcast, wherein she advised listeners yesterday to steer clear of deprivation: “When you’re trying to take something out of your life, replace it with something else that’s just as special”.
If our fasting consists of staying away from food and nothing else, we’re just setting ourselves up for failure…and depriving ourselves of Christ. Instead, we’re encouraged to substitute prayer, Spirit-filled contemplation, scripture reading, or anything else that draws us closer to the One who gave up everything for us, even His own life.
That’s why I spent my lunch hour listening to Catholic podcasts, drafting my first blog post in far too long…and reviewing and publishing it during what would’ve been my tea break. In that way, I gave up food for life, and substituted food of life.
I think the replacement is actually more special. Don’t you?
Lord God, as we begin the season of Lent today, remind us that nothing is good that doesn’t have its roots in You. Help us to willingly give up everything that isn’t worthy, that we may turn to You in our hunger and embrace Your Only Son, our friend and Lord Jesus Christ. May we die to our corporeal selves, that we may rise in light and lead our neighbors to You.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen.