Lent By Newman: A Reflection

The Love of God

Tactical retreats are necessary to attend to one's spiritual well being in the midst of the workaday world to better cooperate with God in the ongoing mission to share the Good News for the salvation of souls.

Right Way

The Way of Jesus is to take up one's cross and know that Jesus is wed to our lives, sharing our journey as the lover of our souls. Are we faithful to our spouse, the Lord?

Asking of God the grace to enter into our wounds in order to grow closer to Christ makes a place in us for God, to grow in holiness and the love of God and neighbour. Without the mercy of God's grace, we might as well make of ourselves a hell in which we are never touched by love nor know the blessing of authentic freedom. As the saying goes: know Jesus, know peace; no Jesus, no peace. Likewise: know Jesus, know truth; etc.

Saint John Henry Newman, Doctor of the Church, offers wise counsel for making the most of Lenten practices. The earnest disciple would do well to take in the entire Sermon cited in part below.

Sermon 1. Fasting a Source of Trial Seasons - Lent

And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungered. St. Matthew iv. 2.

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We fast by way of penitence, and in order to subdue the flesh. Our Saviour had no need of fasting for either purpose. His fasting was unlike ours, as in its intensity, so in its object. And yet when we begin to fast, His pattern is set before us; and we continue the time of fasting till, in number of days, we have equalled His.

There is a reason for this;—in truth, we must do nothing except with Him in our eye. As He it is, through whom alone we have the power to do any good thing, so unless we do it for Him it is not good. From Him our obedience comes, towards Him it must look. He says, "Without Me ye can do nothing." [John xv. 5.] No work is good without grace and without love.

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The world reflects the culture and systems that go against God’s truth, while the flesh points to man's natural desire for comfort and pleasure over sacrifice and holiness. The devil is the personal enemy who works to pull souls away from light and peace. To face these serious challenges, the Christian is encouraged to depend on God’s grace and the spiritual armor given by Christ, for "no work is good without grace and without love."

Yes, even in our penitential exercises, when we could least have hoped to find a pattern in Him, Christ has gone before us to sanctify them to us. He has blessed fasting as a means of grace, in that He has fasted; and fasting is only acceptable when it is done for His sake. Penitence is mere formality, or mere remorse, unless done in love. If we fast, without uniting ourselves in heart to Christ, imitating Him, and praying that He would make our fasting His own, would associate it with His own, and communicate to it the virtue of His own, so that we may be in Him, and He in us; we fast as Jews, not as Christians. Well then, in the Services of this first Sunday, do we place the thought of Him before us, whose grace must be within us, lest in our chastisements we beat the air and humble ourselves in vain.

The Christian is oriented to Christ, captivated by Christ, in communion with Christ, "lest in our chastisements we beat the air and humble ourselves in vain."

Let us proceed in peace.

Now in many ways the example of Christ may be made a comfort and encouragement to us at this season of the year.

And, first of all, it will be well to insist on the circumstance, that our Lord did thus retire from the world, as confirming to us the like duty, as far as we can observe it. This He did specially in the instance before us, before His entering upon His own ministry; ... Before He chose His Apostles, He observed the same preparation. "It came to pass in those days that He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God." [Luke vi. 12.] Prayer through the night was a self-chastisement of the same kind as fasting. ... Considering that our Lord is the pattern of human nature in its perfection, surely we cannot doubt that such instances of strict devotion are intended for our imitation, if we would be perfect. [ ... ]

Next I observe, that our Saviour's fast was but introductory to His temptation. He went into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, but before He was tempted He fasted. Nor, as is worth notice, was this a mere preparation for the conflict, but it was the cause of the conflict in good measure. Instead of its simply arming Him against temptation, it is plain, that in the first instance, His retirement and abstinence exposed Him to it. Fasting was the primary occasion of it. "When He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterwards an hungered;" and then the tempter came, bidding Him turn the stones into bread. Satan made use of His fast against Himself.

Jesus is our pattern and guide. Relying on the power of the Holy Ghost, we prepare ourselves to enter into the Passion of Christ, "for only they who bear the cross may hope to wear the glorious crown (Charles W. Everest; St Mark 8:34)."

And this is singularly the case with Christians now, who endeavour to imitate Him; and it is well they should know it, for else they will be discouraged when they practise abstinences. It is commonly said, that fasting is intended to make us better Christians, to sober us, and to bring us more entirely at Christ's feet in faith and humility. This is true, viewing matters on the whole.

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Challenges

Let it not then distress Christians, even if they find themselves exposed to thoughts from which they turn with abhorrence and terror. Rather let such a trial bring before their thoughts, with something of vividness and distinctness, the condescension of the Son of God. For if it be a trial to us creatures and sinners to have thoughts alien from our hearts presented to us, what must have been the suffering to the Eternal Word, God of God, and Light of Light, Holy and True, to have been so subjected to Satan, that he could inflict every misery on Him short of sinning? Certainly it is a trial to us to have motives and feelings imputed to us before men, by the accuser of the brethren, which we never entertained; it is a trial to have ideas secretly suggested within, from which we shrink; it is a trial to us for Satan to be allowed so to mix his own thoughts with ours, that we feel guilty even when we are not; nay, to be able to set on fire our irrational nature, till in some sense we really sin against our will: but has not One gone before us more awful in His trial, more glorious in His victory? He was tempted in all points "like as we are, yet without sin." Surely here too, Christ's temptation speaks comfort and encouragement to us.

Be not afraid. "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10)." Pope Saint John Paul II reminds us, "Why should we have no fear? Because man has been redeemed by God." Pray that such trust be every person's motivation, discipline and consolation.

Nothing can shake our hope in the Lord. Jesus Christ is the Lord over all history, and no force of darkness can lead us to despair. He is our true love, and in His presence, every trace of evil, including fear, fades away completely (see Father Mario Attard, OFM, Cap, Saint John Paul II: The Pope Who Taught Us Not to Be Afraid, in Catholic Insight 23OCT2022).

Perseverance 

This then is, perhaps, a truer view of the consequences of fasting, than is commonly taken. Of course, it is always, under God's grace, a spiritual benefit to our hearts eventually, and improves them,—through Him who worketh all in all; and it often is a sensible benefit to us at the time. Still it is often otherwise; often it but increases the excitability and susceptibility of our hearts; in all cases it is therefore to be viewed, chiefly as an approach to God—an approach to the powers of heaven—yes, and to the powers of hell. And in this point of view there is something very awful in it. For what we know, Christ's temptation is but the fulness of that which, in its degree, and according to our infirmities and corruptions, takes place in all His servants who seek Him. And if so, this surely was a strong reason for the Church's associating our season of humiliation with Christ's sojourn in the wilderness, that we might not be left to our own thoughts, and, as it were, "with the wild beasts," and thereupon despond when we afflict ourselves; but might feel that we are what we really are, not bondmen of Satan, and children of wrath, hopelessly groaning under our burden, confessing it, and crying out, "O wretched man!" but sinners indeed, and sinners afflicting themselves, and doing penance for sin; but withal God's children, in whom repentance is fruitful, and who, while they abase themselves are exalted, and at the very time that they are throwing themselves at the foot of the Cross, are still Christ's soldiers, sword in hand, fighting a generous warfare, and knowing that they have that in them, and upon them, which devils tremble at, and flee.

Victory

And this is another point which calls for distinct notice in the history of our Saviour's fasting and temptation, viz. the victory which attended it. He had three temptations, and thrice He conquered,—at the last He said, "Get thee behind Me, Satan;" on which "the devil leaveth Him." This conflict and victory in the world unseen, is intimated in other passages of Scripture. The most remarkable of these is what our Lord says with reference to the demoniac, whom His Apostles could not cure. He had just descended from the Mount of Transfiguration, where, let it be observed, He seems to have gone up with His favoured Apostles to pass the night in prayer. He came down after that communion with the unseen world, and cast out the unclean spirit, and then He said, "This kind can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting," [Mark ix. 29.] which is nothing less than a plain declaration that such exercises give the soul power over the unseen world; nor can any sufficient reason be assigned for confining it to the first ages of the Gospel. And I think there is enough evidence, even in what may be known afterwards of the effects of such exercises upon persons now (not to have recourse to history), to show that these exercises are God's instruments for giving the Christian a high and royal power above and over his fellows.

And since prayer is not only the weapon, ever necessary and sure, in our conflict with the powers of evil, but a deliverance from evil is ever implied as the object of prayer, it follows that all texts whatever which speak of our addressing and prevailing on Almighty God, with prayer and fasting, do, in fact, declare this conflict and promise this victory over the evil one.

Will, weapons, warfare, victory.

1. the will freely united to God in love.
2. use weapons of grace.
3. engage in spiritual warfare to conquer temptation and sin.
4. pursue victory over evil and injustice, and the realization of authentic freedom.

This reflection concludes with a word from the great Polish Pope whose reminder freed a nation from the tyranny of an evil ideology, whose forgiveness of his would-be assassin revealed Christ's love, and whose indefatigable witness to the truth, goodness and beauty of the Gospel has led countless souls to Christ.

POPE SAINT JOHN PAUL II 

Real love is demanding. I would fail in my mission if I did not tell you so. Love demands a personal commitment to the will of God. Do not forget that true love sets no conditions; it does not calculate or complain, but simply loves. Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought. Love of Christ does not distract us from interest in others, but rather invites us to responsibility for them, to the exclusion of no one.