LENTEN GIVING

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The three traditional Lenten practices have always been prayer, fasting, and alms giving. I've been thinking a lot about the first of these this past week. Some of the following ideas are borrowed from Cyprian Smith, O.S.B., The Path of Life, a book I heartily recommend for lay folks as well as monks.

We tend to see the Christian life as having to do with "doing good." So it can come as a shock to hear that our life as Christians not about doing anything, but about being something. Once we start to understand and become what we're meant to be, then we have a much better chance of understanding and achieving what we're meant to do.

There are lots of ways of describing what we a Christians are supposed to be, but when approaching the subject of prayer, it's helpful to think in terms of "relationship:" We are meant to be in a personal relationship with God.

Prayer is opening myself to God, it tries to keep the channels open so that God can communicate with us, it maintains and deepens our relationship with God. Prayer, from this point of view, is a lot more passive than active. It's something that happens in me and through me rather than something I do myself. Prayer becomes really deep and authentic when it is something done in me by the Spirit of God, while I, for my part, simply let it happen, and gently remove whatever obstacles may be hindering it.

This approach, making myself a mere channel for God's power, requires a lot of self-effacement and humility. It also requires letting go of one of our culture's most deeply rooted values: The hunger for results. Many of us, when we sit down to pray, do so with a number of unconscious or half-conscious expectations. Since I've decided to give up some of my valuable time to God, I expect God to do something for me in return -- preferably right away. Maybe a sense of peace and tranquility, say, or an insight into God's mysterious plan for me.  If none of these things happen, I start to feel gypped. I've put my dollar bill into the vending machine and nothing's happened. I want my money back.

This is when it's really helpful to remember that prayer is not so much about doing but about being, about entering into an intimate relationship with God, and leaving ourselves vulnerable to disappointment. The primary thing is the contact, the relationship. Everything else is secondary.

Prayer is essentially a gift which we make of ourselves to God. It's all about giving and surrendering. And this, it seems to me, is the greatest thing we can "give up" during Lent: our selves.