February Journal, Septuagesima Sunday

Today is the beginning of Pre-Lent, three Sundays that prepare us for Lent, which of course, prepares us for Easter and Resurrection Day.

In the wisdom of the Church we are ushered in slowly, as if we could not enter suddenly, jumping from one major feast day to another. And I have found that this slower pace allows us to live and breathe the season, to let the seriousness of the moment in our own time penetrate our souls, planting seeds we do not notice. The seasons of the Church Year thus live within us so that we can live them out together as Christians.

One could call it God’s marketing plan, soaking the faithful with profound truths too deep to absorb in one rain, then watering the seeds planted with care and prayer to blossom on that great festival. 

And so we allow Our Lord to garden within us, and part of that gardening is weeding, rooting out the weeds – the tares (last week’s lesson) – so that the good seeds will grow and flourish.

Today we learn that the tares are our sins, those times when we have not loved enough, as my bishop of blessed memory used to say. The Church gives us a list, however, which is most helpful for those of us who tend to wander from the path. We learn of virtues and vices; the Ten Commandments; the Summary of the Law. We have lists to check off as we examine the state of our souls. We are sorry and we repent, promising or at least trying to love more, enough, to exercise virtue and repel vice.

Pre-Lent thus prepares our souls to prepare our bodies during Lent. We consider in these weeks how to run the race, as St. Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians, our Epistle today. We want that incorruptible crown by disciplining our bodies with our minds, taming our flesh with our spirits so that we may control what we do (or what we do not do) not only to ourselves but to others. And in the end, we learn to love.

Christians are like athletes in this sense. We repent in Pre-Lent so that we can fast and abstain in Lent, not for the purpose of losing weight or toning our physique, but to exercise our minds/spirits/souls to command our bodies, our flesh, our appetites.

I believe it was the Anglican writer Evelyn Underhill who said that the greatest fast or discipline is to face the full will of God in your life, and we can see how the taming of the soul in Pre-Lent and the subjection of the body in Lent would leave us in a better position to face that full will of God, to even know or recognize his will. I keep this in mind as fasting becomes more difficult in the senior years, as the body is frail and constantly under subjection.

But it is good to remember these things, and the seasons remind us of Heaven and who we are meant to be. Human beings need reminding, and rituals do this. Sunday rituals are the more obvious, attending Church regularly, keeping the Sabbath holy. Seasonal rituals sneak up on us, and yet arrive on time, given we have been faithful with the daily and weekly ones. 

God is building us. Making us. Recreating us. Clothing us with his garments of glory so that we will be ready for the wedding feast in Heaven. In the meantime, on this little planet Earth, we glimpse those glories, if we keep the law, repent breaking it, tame our passions, learn to love enough.

We call this growing in grace and it is a delightful mystery. If we have been blessed to begin this growing up-ward early in our time we experience more and more grace, glimpse greater and greater glory right here and now. If we begin this growing late in life, as the workers in today’s Gospel parable did, we are still welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven.

But isn’t it better to begin at once, now, if not yesterday? Isn’t it better to experience Christ daily, hourly, with each breath? Bathe me in your love, your glory, O Lord. We need only ask.

So we are reminded today to confess our faults. The big one is pride, for it is the root of all evil (not money) and begets the others. We are a proud people for we reflect our Creator, made in his image. We are royalty and demand obeisance. We are reminded today to put such pride away, to realize we are nothing without God, can do nothing without him. We are sorry, for pride has metastasized and has produced other evils separating us from God.

And so we take those baby steps toward our Maker. With each confession, with each repenting and turning away from the dark toward the light we grow in grace, in fullness, becoming who we are meant to be, fully human, fully children of God.

And we might love enough to enter the gates of the New Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Heaven. 

• The Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Covetousness, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Gluttony, Lust
• The Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity (Love)
• The Cardinal Virtues: Justice, Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude