Pope Benedict has issued “Deus Caritas Est.” Charity is our goal. God wants us to reach the perfection of Charity…THIS IS HAPPINESS. But man tends to put obstacles to reaching it. This obstacle is sin. It is the only obstacle. Sin prevents us from reaching Charity. The devil tempts us to sin – and so the need for…. Prayer, Fasting and Good Works. This is the message of Lent and it teaches us how to counteract sin.
In everyday life, man does two things to sustain his life: to eat daily and to take medicines when he is ill. Christ had left us two general sets of commandments: the first set is meant to direct us to Charity and the other is meant to cure periodic spiritual illnesses that stop or slow us down from proceeding to Charity.
Prayer, Fasting and Good Works, the three elements of Repentance which make up the spirit of Lent are medicines meant to cure. They are not for saints. They are for sinners. Sinners need repentance: saints continue to persevere repenting… just as Mary need not go to the temple for her purification nor for the presentation of Christ, yet she still did, because of her humilty.
Sin may be divided into three categories: sins against self, sins against neighbor, and sins against God. Fasting is supposed to correct the sins against self, Good Works for sins against neighbor and Prayer for sins against God.
Since sins are generally acts of selfishness, something in Fasting, Good Works and Prayer must be given up to cure that selfishness. In Fasting we give up the pleasures of the flesh, in Good Works we give up some of our resources. And in Prayer we give up our will in order to do God’s will.
Prayer, Fasting and Good Works are ways by which we make reparation for sins committed in the past, preserve our souls from committing sins in the present, and they assure that we do not commit sin in the future.
The Rule of St. Benedict is a perfect blend of the right amount of Prayer, Fasting and Good Works done on a typical day. It just has to be lived for one’s entire life until one is righteous in which case these three medicines are no longer needed. In the Gospel on Friday after Ash Wednesday, Christ said that the guests should not fast as long as they are with the bridegroom. Saints are people with the bridegroom and therefore need not fast. But saints are usually the ones who even intensify their Prayer, Fasting, and Good Works! (Painting is “The Temptation of Jesus” by Bartholomaus Brun, 1493-1555)