A HIGHWAY THROUGH THE DESERT

Abba Macarius said, “The soul that loves God, though it may do ten thousand acts of piety, knows it has done nothing. Because it is moved by an unquenchable thirst for God, no act of charity, neither discipline of body nor struggle of the soul will satisfy its desire. Should the body exhaust itself with fasting, should the spirit weary itself in prayer, the soul makes true the words of Scripture in itself: ‘when you shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done only that which was our duty.’ ”—from The Teachings of Abba Macarius the Great

Otto Preminger’s 1962 movie, The Cardinal, follows the career of the fictional Father Stephen Fremoyle as a young priest, Vatican diplomat and finally American cardinal. Early in the picture, Fr Fremoyle serves as curate to an aging and grumpy monsignor, who assigns him the task of catechizing the children of the parish. When one of his students dogmatically asserts “Everybody knows only Catholics go to heaven,” the priest gently tells his class, “The Church teaches that it’s possible for anyone, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, anyone who follows his conscience, to go to Heaven.” The Precocious Girl (there’s one in every catechism class—trust me) springs to her feet and says what every kid is thinking: “Then what’s the use of going to all this trouble to be a Catholic?” At that point, the priest calls a break to class before the movie actually becomes entangled in a genuine theological question.

When I was a boy in confirmation class, without benefit of Preminger, some of us put our version of the same question to the long-suffering Fr Eubanks; when I served my first two curacies, it fell to me to teach the parish youth, and they figured they’d snared me with the self-same question, too. It’s one not a few adults have asked me privately.

We say our Faith is true, and we confess in the Creeds: “…I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church…” And that One Church does teach, as the fictional priest asserts, that anyone who genuinely follows the dictates of his conscience "can go to Heaven."

The whys and wherefores of that is something I’ll leave for another time(following Preminger's example). What concerns me is how the words of Abba Macarius relate to the question the Precocious Girl in each of us asks: “Then what’s the use of going to all this trouble?”

For Abba Macarius, “all the trouble” is the “ten thousand acts of piety…the acts of charity, the discipline of the body, the struggles of the soul.” “What’s the use?” Why bother to keep Lent, to fast and pray and give alms? To recall a question His Apostles put to the Lord Jesus, “What shall WE have, therefore?”

If we keep Lent in hope of a reward, we keep it in vain. The reward of fasting is hunger. The reward of prayer is callused knees and less time than we had before we prayed. The reward of giving alms is less money in your wallet and a smaller bank account.

We don’t do any of this to get something, but to give something.

We give God our hunger, our time spent in prayer, the extra pennies we put in the poor box. We give these things as a Lenten Offering of “ourselves, our souls and bodies to be a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice.”

We don’t follow the Lord Christ on the King’s Highway because we’re going to be the ones getting the prize at the goal. We follow Him for the same reason Abba Macarius does: This is how we tell Him we love Him, not only with our lips, but in our lives.

It's the only reason for Lent.