This Ignatian Life

When Lent approaches, the question always begins: “What are you giving up this year?”  Not having grown up Catholic, I always vaguely envied my friends who got to whine and sulk for forty days while they went without their vice of choice.  Of course, the vices of fifth graders are quite tame; my friends always seemed to be giving up relatively mundane things like eating Skittles, watching television, or being mean to a little brother.  When I became Catholic, I have to admit I was secretly excited to be a part of this Lenten club – what would I give up?  I thought about it for weeks.  Giving up foods held a strange conflict for me – I didn’t want Lent to be a diet plan (and God knows I’m always trying to lose weight).  I figured I could give up television, or wine, or lattes… but none of those things seem to regularly get in the way of my relationship with God.  What might I give up that would truly draw me into a deeper and more life giving relationship with God?  As I was praying about this last year, the Holy Spirit gave me a remarkable revelation.  Why not give up fear?Now, I’m not a timid or frightful person, but last year I began to realize how many of my actions came out of places of deep fear – fear of being hurt, fear of being rejected, fear of looking stupid, fear of being judged, fear of being alone, fear of failing.  I have to admit, my steps towards giving up fear last year weren’t horribly profound.  I went to a concert alone – something I never wanted to do in the past because I felt like people would think of me as a loser.  I tried a new weight machine at the gym, one I had always avoided thinking the meatheads would laugh at my ineptitude.  I initiated a conversation with someone I admired and had been afraid to talk to, thinking he would find me uninteresting.  These tiny steps revealed to me that much of my fear is irrational and the bits that are not irrational are not healthy.  So what if someone laughs at me?  So what if someone doesn’t like me?  So what if someone judges me?  A failure to act beyond those fears was preventing me (and still prevents me, I know) from living the abundant, loving life God is calling me to experience.So, where does Ignatian spirituality fit into all of this?  Inspired by Ignatius, this year for Lent, I’m going a step further.  For the next forty days, I’m going to attempt to fast not only from fear, but from insecurity, anxiety, and self-doubt.  Ignatius reminds us that these feelings are very rarely from God.  As Ignatius points out in the Spiritual Exercises, the enemy “uses discouragement and deception… dissatisfaction… [and] doubts and anxieties” to detract us from our attempts to “pursue the lead of God in our life.” (Paragraph 315, David Fleming translation). Giving up chocolate or beer will not likely help me follow Christ more dearly, but starving my fears will undoubtedly enable me to be cognizant of the areas of unfreedom in my life.  This Lent, I pray for the grace to experience the satiated feeling that comes from feeding my soul with the truth of God rather than the temporary fix that comes when I binge on the lies of the enemy.
Photo: “The Self Doubting Second Guessing Demon“by trixi from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

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