What are you relying on?

We live in a culture that idolizes individual power and self-reliance. We miss something very crucial if we approach our preparation for Lent without deepening our humility and dependence on Christ. This short extract from a homily by Father Phillip LeMaster may be helpful in identifying how this trap of self-reliance can manifest itself during Lent. It’s interesting that a central tenet of his homily is drawn from the short desperate prayer found in the Gospel of Mark which many of us can so deeply relate to … ‘I believe, help my unbelief’. Perhaps this prayer epitomizes this necessity of a relentless cycle of receiving from Him all that is good and then circling in our emptiness back to Him as the ‘treasury of good gifts’ and ‘giver of life’.

As we think about the condition of the hearts of the Publican and Pharisee, it’s useful to ask this question of what is the power source for how they are praying and living their lives. It seems clear that much of what was missing in the heart of the Pharisee is a ‘with God’ experience and realization of how dependent he is upon God for whatever manifestation of virtue appears in his life. The Pharisee was living in the delusion and distortion that he was the creator of these virtues and he was worshipping and praying to the small imaginary god of self and self reliance not the True and Triune God. And perhaps one of the greatest assets and aspirations of the Publican was the clarity in his heart that only in the humility of a ‘with God’ reliance could he be delivered from his darkness to Light.

Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. 

Mark 9: 23 – 24

Father Phillip LeMaster

As we continue the Lenten journey, we must remember that this season is not about us and what we think we can achieve spiritually by relying on our own willpower or virtue to perform acts of religious devotion.  Spiritual disciplines are not exercises in self-reliance, as though we earn something from God by being diligent in performing them.  Instead, they are simply ways of helping us share more fully in the life of Christ as we grow in recognizing our sinfulness and opening ourselves to receive His healing mercy.  No amount of piety could conquer the power of death and make a path for us to participate personally in the eternal life of God by grace.  Only the God-Man, in His full Self-offering on the Cross, could do that. Lent is preparation to unite ourselves to Christ in His Passion, for “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and after He is killed, He will rise on the third day.” He is the eternal High Priest Who “has gone as a forerunner on our behalf” into the Heavenly Tabernacle where He intercedes for us eternally (Rom. 8:34).

The healing of our souls is found by sharing in the life of Christ.  We will be able to unite ourselves to Him in holiness only when we know the weakness of our faith as we turn away from self-reliance and receive His mercy from the depths of our souls.  The disciplines of Lent are teachers of humility that should help us “commend ourselves and one another, and all our life, unto Christ our God.”  He accepted the imperfect faith of the father of the demon-possessed boy, and He will do the same with us if we come to Him in the same humble spirit.  Doing so is really the only way to prepare to follow the Savior to His Cross and empty tomb.