The future Benedict XVI wrote this in his now-classic book Introduction to Christianity. The Cross, he wrote, "expresses the primacy of acceptance over action... Accordingly, from the point of view of the Christian faith, man comes in the profoundest sense to himself not through what he does but through what he accepts.”
We are all capable of doing the right things but for the wrong reasons. Our actions always come bundled with intentions. As we enter Lent, we are given an opportunity to take a step back from our normal motivations and take stock of our default intentions that feed our appetite for action.
This parody of the 23rd Psalm, by author John Sumwalt, uses humour to make this point.
My appetite is my shepherd, I always want. It maketh me to sit down and stuff myself. It leadeth me to my refrigerator repeatedly. Sometimes during the night, it leadeth me in the path of Burger King for a Whopper. It destroyeth my shape. Yea, though I knoweth I gaineth, I will not stop eating. For the food tasteth so good. The ice cream and the cookies they comfort me.
In the Gospel of Luke, the Gerasene demoniac had developed an appetite for some pretty self-destructive behaviour, living in a graveyard, in an animal-like state, and cutting himself with stones. His default intentions were being formed by his own collection of personal demons. Jesus, with his intention to usher in the Kingdom of God, shows those demons the door and he then takes up residence in the man’s heart. Luke 8:35 says that after the man’s encounter with Jesus he was “In his right mind”. As per Pope Benedict XVI’s point, in his new state of mind the man now has the true sense of himself. He could resonate with Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:22, for he has detached himself from, “the old man, who was corrupted according to the desire of error.”
Lent gives us an opportunity to temporarily accept a new set of motivations. To be formed by the acceptance of a “not my will but thine be done” response to the will of God. To take our normal set of appetites and put them on the back burner for a few weeks. Like the Gerasene demoniac we might find that we will have no desire to go back to the way we were and that a new life motivated by the desire to be at the service of redemptive love, will be the salvation of us.
Photo credit: Ralph Ai Artist
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