I’ve been thinking a lot about sacrifice and self-denial lately, maybe because it’s Lent, the season where we meditate on the ultimate sacrifice of Christ for us. Whatever the reason, I have felt drawn to do more and to go further in this practice of sacrificial living. But the deeper I dive into sacrifice, the more I’m realizing how bottomless it is.
In other words, there is no particular level that, upon reaching it, we’ve “graduated” from the school of sacrifice. No matter how much I deny myself and live sacrificially, I will always be able to give up something else, to deny myself just a little more. And this is not dependent upon one’s level of spirituality! Even for the most disciplined ascetic, there will never come a time when he no longer needs to practice his disciplines; they become a way of life.
If you’re at all like me, you could have varying reactions to this. At first, it’s a little discouraging because, essentially, what this means is that we will never be enough; nothing we do for God or for others will ever reach the bar set for us by Christ’s Passion and death. In this life there will never come a point where our striving will be over. Thinking about that can be rather exhausting!
On the other hand, though, there is a beauty and a freedom in embracing this kind of living, even a kind of joy! When we say, “yes” to making a greater effort each day to grow closer to God — especially through sacrifice and self-denial — we can look back and say, “I did my best; I gave it my all; I was 100% invested in pursuing holiness today.” And in making a habit of this, we also become increasingly aware of the areas where we need to sacrifice more, where we could stretch ourselves even further.
But perhaps we are like Naaman the Syrian, whose story we hear in the first reading today. Like Naaman, we want to be cleansed, we want to be made holy, but only on our own terms. We seek signs and wonders, we expect instant miracles, to be cured or aided on our timeline — and we are discontent and impatient with God when He asks us to step out in faith, to do the unexpected, to go beyond the limits of our comfort zone. (And living sacrificially definitely puts you out of your comfort zone!) But it is then that the greatest things will happen; it is there we will find the miraculous.
It is not enough to go to church on Sunday, or even throughout the week. It is not enough to try to be “a good person” whenever you might remember. It is not enough to volunteer at the soup kitchen, to go on mission trips, or pray the Rosary every day. All these things are good, but each of us should also be consistently bringing the love of Jesus into our daily interactions with others, into the difficult moments, into our weariness, our pain, our everything. In the Christian life, there is no such thing as “good enough.” “There is always room for improvement” is the phrase that ought to be echoing in our head.
We are called to tear down our self-made prisons of sanitary and tidy faith, to break whatever patterns of “safe” living that we may have adopted, to dare to venture into the messy unknown of that heralded path of sacrifice, the “extra mile.”
This always reminds me of a homily given by one of my favorite priests, Fr. Jim. While speaking about how we should approach every day as an adventure with God, he said that part of looking at life this way is a willingness to give it everything we’ve got. And then, with a smile, he stated simply, “We gotta live in the extra mile.”
This one sentence, spoken by a humble priest with such eagerness and conviction, has haunted me ever since. Unable to erase it from my mind, I have found myself becoming more generous with my time, trying to be less impatient, offering kindness to people I would have previously walked by without a second glance. My M.O. is now to “live in the extra mile,” and it is truly changing my life and, I pray, the lives of all those I encounter.
As we begin this third week of Lent, leave the main road and join me in trying to live in the extra mile! By training our minds, spirits, and bodies to be generous in denying ourselves daily, either through personal sacrifices or sacrificing for those around us, we will slowly be healed, strengthened, transformed, and sanctified. And in becoming more and more open to God’s will and desires, in letting go of our agendas and worldly concerns, we will become more fully alive, more fully His.
