When are we gonna learn that the flesh cannot please God?
I agree. I wonder when it will register that Catholics are not trying to please God thru the flesh. Instead, we seek to please God thru our souls. There is only one way that we can please God, and that is to submit our wills to His. When we seek to be more like the Creator and His Son, our model, then we begin to ascend from the darkness of sin that weighs on us.
Satan would love us to not sacrifice, as in imitation of Christ. When we deny our flesh (let me reemphasize, when we DENY our flesh), we can live in our souls away from the strains of temptation. Sacrifice during Lent is an exercise that should not be just for Lent, but rather it should be practiced at all times of the year. Sacrificing helps us to break the flesh’s sway over our will. Each of us is tempted by sin. Some of us are tempted by certain kinds of sin, and others of us are tempted more by other kinds. But they all come back to the flesh. We are tempted thru the flesh. Sin is the weakness of the flesh. If we were not bound by our bodies, we could not help but to seek out God’s Light. We would naturally fly, unrestrained, to Heaven.
Now, you said some very true comments. “We could fast to death but it would not save our soul.” Yes, so true. Christ’s Blood has saved the world of those who will accept Him and follow Him. He invites us in the scriptures to follow Him. That is something that cannot be overlook or passed by. We must follow Him if we are truly His disciples. And follow we aim to do, all the way to the Cross. We will follow in the footsteps where He leads us when the path is green and easy. And we will follow Him when people persecute us and kill us. During Lent, we will also follow Him into the desert. We will prepare our souls for His Sacrifice. We could never hope to even get close to His Sacrifice; it was the ultimate. But we can still suffer for Him, in His Name, and at the expense of the flesh that causes our downfall. We remind ourselves of the attraction of sin through our sacrifice, thereby learning about it and from it. We emerge from our deserts stronger and more aware than before of sin in our lives and the temptation that begins innocently enough, outside of the realm of sin, but quickly turns to the chains that bind us and drag us.
For example, I gave up sweets. I’m not doing it to loose weight. I’m not doing it to be healthy. I chose it because it was something difficult for me to sacrifice for Lent. There have been many times with friends or coworkers that I’ve been in surrounded by sweets. Now, eating a sweet here and there is nothing close to a sin. But the flesh craves more because the sensation is pleasurable. If I do not exercise restraint, I become dragged down by gluttony (a deadly sin). If I don’t put the restraints on early enough, I begin to feel that I’ve lost control of the animal. It seems to drag my hand. It seems as though I no longer have the will to give it up. In truth, I have surrendered my will to the sin, allowing it to control me. This lack of control can then invite other sins.
However, if I use this mediation and reflective period of Lent to focus my sacrifice, I can begin to see how much control I can have. Now, certainly God strengthens me. I, like all humans, am a creature of habit. Sin is the worst habit. So I do need help to break free and create new habits for God. I must subjugate my flesh and bring it under the will of my soul, instead of the other way around.
Lenten sacrifice is not easy. It sound not be thought of as some casual thing. It’s no New Year’s resolution. It’s sacrifice. It’s hard, so I understand people who do not want to participate. And I understand how easily Satan can form in our minds the excuses not to sacrifice. He may even cut and paste the Bible until he makes it easy to excuse oneself from this mediation. It is a choice. That is what God gave us, a choice. And when we choose Him, THAT makes Him happy. When we choose to eliminate or reduce sin in our lives, that means we are placing God as a priority in our lives over temptation and sin…and that makes Him happy. When we can sacrifice our bodies to lift our souls to Him unrestrained, all that hard work does make Him happy. My Lenten wish for you and all peoples under Christ’s victorious banner is to seek out discipline of the flesh and to follow Christ wherever He leads; down easy roads, and up even to Calvary; that He may help us shed the sin in our lives and be able to walk confidently thru temptation.
