SpiritMatters Monthly February 2009

Lord lettest thou thy servant depart in peace...

When I was a young seminary student I had a dog named Denali who shared a great love of mine: books. While I enjoyed reading them, she enjoyed eating them, particularly, for some reason, religious books. I may have been reading the great theological ideas of the past two thousand years, but she was the one who was digesting them. Try as I might to hide my new prayer books, or bibles, or liturgical manuals, she always managed to find them and reduce them to pulp. Living with Denali was frustrating, even infuriating at times, but she taught me an important lesson: to find peace in this life and to hold on to it, you have to be prepared to let go of the things you love; even the things you love very much. While I eventually made peace with the fact that life with Denali would mean that I would have to be willing to sacrifice many of my material possessions, not to mention time, money and sleep, I was still not prepared for the greatest sacrifice which I was going to have to make.

At some point a few years ago Denali suddenly became very ill, and despite numerous veterinary treatments, eventually I had to let her return to the God who brought her into my life. As I sit here writing this I can look across the room and see a bookshelf full of half-eaten, or at least badly chewed books left over from my years with her. I would gladly get rid of all of them to have my dog back, but sadly, life doesn’t work that way. No, perhaps the harshest reality of life is that it calls us at times to let go of the things we love the most: our possessions, our freedom, our loved ones and yes, eventually even our own lives. There is a familiar story in the Christian scriptures where a young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus replies by telling him some of the basic commandments (not stealing, loving your neighbor as yourself, etc.). The young man, still unsatisfied, petitioned Jesus again saying that he has kept the commandments, yet still feels unprepared to enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus then replied (I’m paraphrasing here) that if you want to be more prepared to enter the kingdom of heaven give away all your stuff and follow me. The young man went away grieving because he was quite wealthy. This is where Jesus makes the famous statement “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Jesus isn’t condemning rich people, nor is he condemning possessions. What I think that Jesus is trying to teach this young man is that if you want to have some level of peace in this life, and if you want to prepare yourself for entering into the next life, then you must learn to let go of things, not because they are evil or bad, but because the reality of life is that sometimes we have to sacrifice the things we love, and sometimes the things we love are taken from us.

The Christian season of Lent begins this month, and like the Muslim season of Ramadan or the Jewish Passover, followers of the faith are often asked to give something up or abstain from something that they normally enjoy. I used to be quite skeptical of the practice of giving things up during Lent, because it always seemed like an artificial way of punishing ourselves for all the bad things we did the rest of the year. Why give something up for Lent if you are only going to take it back come Easter morning? At least, that’s what I used to think. Now I’m beginning to believe that giving things up during Lent isn’t so much about self-denial or self-punishment as it is about the practice of letting go. We give up things not because they are bad, or because we are bad; we give up things because we need to learn how to let go of the things we love.

February begins with the Feast of the Presentation, an ancient celebration of the Church which tells the story of Mary and Joseph going to the temple to give thanks to God for the safe delivery of their newborn child. The priest, named Simeon, blesses God for such a wonderful gift, but then he offers a strange warning for Mary: “A sword will pierce your own soul too.” Why did Simeon make this statement? Perhaps because he predicted that someday Mary would be forced to give back to God this precious child which she loved so much. Giving up something we love can sometimes feel like a knife through the heart, especially when what we love is another person (or in my case, a beloved pet). Giving up material things isn’t always easy either. The recent economic slump has caused many of us to sacrifice things in our life which we were fond of. Sometimes we choose to give things up; sometimes the choice is made for us. If we want any peace in this life at all, we have to learn how to let go of things. Many Christians give things up during Lent with the full intention of running right back to them come Easter Sunday. I used to think that this was somewhat hypocritical, but now I realize that it is perfectly symbolic of the Christian hope: come the Resurrection, those things which we have had to give up in life will be joyfully returned to us.
May all of us, regardless of our faith, live in the hope that the sacrifices we make now are only for a season.

Blessings,

Fr. Kevin