A Lenten Reflection: Joy in Sacrifice

Our lives are the living love letters of God’s communion with His people. Our unique journey with Christ continues to scribe the unforeseen pages of God’s revelation for His creation. Let it be known that your life, your saintly commission, is inspired by the Living Word written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 1:22; Gal. 4:6). Lent is a miraculous witness of how God transforms our weaknesses into strengths (2 Cor. 12:9-10).            

“How can these people of God laugh and endure suffering in the same breath?” asks the secular world. My dear saints, life with God is wisdom to receive suffering with grace. A human soul attempting to act separate from God morphs suffering into diverse forms of spiritual oppression. This oppression leads to further separation from Love itself. So, the people who have strayed from God are looking to the people of the Kingdom of God, and they are asking themselves, “how can these people know joy and sorrow at the same time?”

The children of God are not destined for complacency or mediocrity. God designed us to be His image and to cultivate the extraordinary out of the ordinary (Gen. 2:15). The Church presents our four cardinal virtues comprised of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], 1997, para. 1805). We encounter our divine goodness through our pursuit of virtue and, as a result, we habitually experience God’s offer of grace, greatness and glory.

On the sixth day of Creation, God looked at His children with joy and found them “very good” (Gen. 1:31 [NABRE]). To be like God is to resemble the humility of Christ. What does this likeness look like? This likeness is sacrifice. A sacred action of adoring love for our beloved Lord. A selfless gift in which personal loss is encountered to will the good of another, with no intention of gaining anything in return, other than glorifying our Heavenly Father. The perfect sacrifice is Christ’s Crucifixion. Let our hearts desire for our sacrifice to be in perfect communion with Christ and in union with His Body. “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 [NABRE]).

As joyful messianic missionaries may our Lenten sacrifices realign our lives according to God’s will. The fruit of Lent is discerning how our spiritual wellness enriches our family, community, businesses, vocations and all whom we serve and shepherd.