The season of Lent is offered to us
as a time of self-examination.
But why would we need to examine ourselves?
Normally when we speak of examining things
we are trying to find out something that is
somehow obscure or hidden from us.
Doctors examine patients
to see if there might not be ailments
that are not immediately apparent.
Teachers subject their students to examinations
to find out what knowledge they have
hidden away in their heads.
Juries are invited to examine evidence
to uncover the truth of what has occurred.
So why should we need to examine ourselves?
Can I be obscure to myself,
hidden from myself?
as a time of self-examination.
But why would we need to examine ourselves?
Normally when we speak of examining things
we are trying to find out something that is
somehow obscure or hidden from us.
Doctors examine patients
to see if there might not be ailments
that are not immediately apparent.
Teachers subject their students to examinations
to find out what knowledge they have
hidden away in their heads.
Juries are invited to examine evidence
to uncover the truth of what has occurred.
So why should we need to examine ourselves?
Can I be obscure to myself,
hidden from myself?
The fact that the Church calls us
to self-examination during the season of Lent
suggests that this may actually be the case.
It suggests that we may have a way of hiding from ourselves,
deceiving ourselves about the state of our own souls,
convincing ourselves to ignore certain truths about who we are.
Jesus himself suggests as much in today’s Gospel,
saying that if we find ourselves thinking
that those who suffer tragic misfortune
must have been great sinners,
and a lack of tragic misfortune in our lives
must be a sign of our virtue,
we are fooling ourselves.
Jesus breaks through such self-deception,
saying, “I tell you, if you do not repent,
you will all perish as they did!”
Paul makes a similar point
in his letter to the Corinthians.
After he recounts the unfaithfulness
of the Israelites in the desert after the Exodus,
he warns his readers not to grow too smug
about their standing before God;
the unfaithfulness of their ancestors in faith
should rather stand as a warning to them:
“whoever thinks he is standing secure
should take care not to fall.”
to self-examination during the season of Lent
suggests that this may actually be the case.
It suggests that we may have a way of hiding from ourselves,
deceiving ourselves about the state of our own souls,
convincing ourselves to ignore certain truths about who we are.
Jesus himself suggests as much in today’s Gospel,
saying that if we find ourselves thinking
that those who suffer tragic misfortune
must have been great sinners,
and a lack of tragic misfortune in our lives
must be a sign of our virtue,
we are fooling ourselves.
Jesus breaks through such self-deception,
saying, “I tell you, if you do not repent,
you will all perish as they did!”
Paul makes a similar point
in his letter to the Corinthians.
After he recounts the unfaithfulness
of the Israelites in the desert after the Exodus,
he warns his readers not to grow too smug
about their standing before God;
the unfaithfulness of their ancestors in faith
should rather stand as a warning to them:
“whoever thinks he is standing secure
should take care not to fall.”
We human beings, it seems,
have a propensity for self-deception.
Saint Catherine of Siena said that this is why
we must make self-knowledge
the foundation of our spiritual lives;
we must dwell, as she put it,
in the house of self-knowledge.
But how do enter into
this house of self-knowledge?
How do we examine ourselves
so as to overcome
our propensity to self-deceive?
Is self-examination simply a matter
of cataloging our sins and failings,
of minutely poring over all
that we have done wrong?
I don’t think so,
for we are not only more miserable
than we will admit to ourselves,
we are also far greater
than we are willing to recognize.
have a propensity for self-deception.
Saint Catherine of Siena said that this is why
we must make self-knowledge
the foundation of our spiritual lives;
we must dwell, as she put it,
in the house of self-knowledge.
But how do enter into
this house of self-knowledge?
How do we examine ourselves
so as to overcome
our propensity to self-deceive?
Is self-examination simply a matter
of cataloging our sins and failings,
of minutely poring over all
that we have done wrong?
I don’t think so,
for we are not only more miserable
than we will admit to ourselves,
we are also far greater
than we are willing to recognize.
Saint Catherine says that we
cannot come truly to know ourselves
without knowing God.
And what we must know
about ourselves and about God
is that God is, as he declares to Moses,
“I am who am”—the One who is—
and we, in contrast, are the ones who are not.
What Catherine means by this
is that it is God’s very nature to exist,
and that everything else in the universe
has been created by God from nothing.
So while God is the One who is,
we are beings who have been drawn by God
out of nothingness into existence,
in an act of unimaginable love.
When Catherine says
that we must know that we are not,
she is saying that we must know that we exist
only because God has loved us into existence,
and we must also know that
when we turn away from God
we begin to disappear back into nothingness.
To dwell in the house of self-knowledge
we must both acknowledge ourselves
as artifacts of divine love,
and understand how catastrophic it is for us
to turn away from that love
to a fruitless love of ourselves.
cannot come truly to know ourselves
without knowing God.
And what we must know
about ourselves and about God
is that God is, as he declares to Moses,
“I am who am”—the One who is—
and we, in contrast, are the ones who are not.
What Catherine means by this
is that it is God’s very nature to exist,
and that everything else in the universe
has been created by God from nothing.
So while God is the One who is,
we are beings who have been drawn by God
out of nothingness into existence,
in an act of unimaginable love.
When Catherine says
that we must know that we are not,
she is saying that we must know that we exist
only because God has loved us into existence,
and we must also know that
when we turn away from God
we begin to disappear back into nothingness.
To dwell in the house of self-knowledge
we must both acknowledge ourselves
as artifacts of divine love,
and understand how catastrophic it is for us
to turn away from that love
to a fruitless love of ourselves.
During Lent we should ponder
this double truth about ourselves,
the grandeur and misery of our condition.
We should hear Jesus’ words,
“if you do not repent,
you will all perish as they did!”
not as a threat of divine punishment,
but as an invitation to let grace turn us back
to the God who has loved us
out of nothingness into existence.
We should hear St. Paul’s words,
“whoever thinks he is standing secure
should take care not to fall,”
not as an exhortation to anxiety and fear
but as an invitation to us, who are not,
to plant our feet more firmly
on the solid rock of the One who is.
Our recognition of our own poverty
should make us only marvel more
at the richness of God’s grace
that has been bestowed upon us.
Our Lenten self-examination,
if it can pierce our self-deception,
should lead us to sincere sorrow
for our sins and failings,
but also to a deep gratitude to God
for our creation and redemption
and our hope of eternal glory.
We begin Lent as the fruitless fig tree,
having done little with the time bestowed on us,
but given by grace one more season to turn
from the sterile self-love that pulls us into nothingness
back to the embrace of the God who loves us.
And within that embrace we can become
like the thorn bush from which God spoke to Moses,
ablaze but not consumed by the fire of the One who is,
beacons that draw others into the embrace of God.
if it can pierce our self-deception,
should lead us to sincere sorrow
for our sins and failings,
but also to a deep gratitude to God
for our creation and redemption
and our hope of eternal glory.
We begin Lent as the fruitless fig tree,
having done little with the time bestowed on us,
but given by grace one more season to turn
from the sterile self-love that pulls us into nothingness
back to the embrace of the God who loves us.
And within that embrace we can become
like the thorn bush from which God spoke to Moses,
ablaze but not consumed by the fire of the One who is,
beacons that draw others into the embrace of God.
In this Lenten season,
may we come to know ourselves
as we come to know the One who is,
and may God have mercy on us all.
may we come to know ourselves
as we come to know the One who is,
and may God have mercy on us all.
