Becoming Self Masters

Lent is an awesome time. Not only do we begin preparations for Easter, but we are given a chance to turn our mind, our hearts, and our lives back towards Christ. It is a time where we can begin anew in our walk with Christ and a time where we can more fully examine our lives and the areas where we have become enslaved.

What a minute, Kristine. Did you just say "enslaved?" What does slavery have to do with Lent?

A lot, I must say.

Little do we know it but we are slaves to many desires in our lives. One may be enslaved to chocolate, others to their IPhones, others to shopping, others to Facebook, and on and on. Being enslaved to a desire simply means that you can't say No. I, myself, had to give up television for Lent one year because I just couldn't turn it off. If it wasn't on in the background I felt uneasy. It's not that I loved TV or the shows I had on, but rather it had become such a part of my life that I no longer had control over the remote. So, I had to make a clean break. Turn it off for 40 days in order to regain control over this aspect of my life. Turn it off and give it up so that I may, once again, be able to exercise my free will  freely.

Lent gives us the chance to look at the areas in our lives where we, too, have become enslaved. What is it that I can't say "no" to? The answer very well may be the thing God is calling us to forgo.

What happens when we finally have control over our desires is that we become "self-masters." Finally our intellect, will, and faith in the Lord are guiding the ship of our lives - not our desires. And this is what God is calling us to - not a false freedom of being able to do whatever we want whenever we feel like it (because this is the mind set that ultimately leads to slavery) but rather to a power over our desires to be able to choose the good in every situation.

And this is why Christ and the Church call every single person (whether  married, single, discerning, a priest, a nun, etc) to chastity. Chastity is not simply saying "no" to sex. Chastity is aligning our sexual desires with the laws of the Church (the laws that Christ gave us) and the grace of the Holy Spirit. Chastity is the power to have control over our sexual desires and to steer these desires according to God's Will.

Many people in our world, in the name of "freedom," are enslaved to their sexual desires. There are so many, both young and old, that just can't say "no." Our world tells us that it is "unnatural" to forgo a sexual desire - that this will lead to perversion. But the exact opposite is true. If one can never say "no," they are no longer free. What begins as a quest for ultimate freedom for our sexual desires (namely doing what we want, when we want to) actually leads us to slavery. Quite an irony, if you ask me.

But we can being to regain power over our sexuality - with Lent being such a time to do so. If there are any areas in our own lives, whether sexual in nature or not, that we realize we are enslaved to, let us make a clean break and offer them to the Lord. Not that we might push these things under a rug, but rather let them be redeemed by Christ and try to begin life anew.

May Christ give each one of us the power of becoming self masters that we will grow in virtue, in holiness, and be ever closer to our goal of Heaven.