from Father McKenna: Whatever sacrifices we make, we must always keep in mind the way a Catholic should do penance. We must be balanced in our approach. We should challenge ourselves and push ourselves to do a little extra. It should be a sacrifice. But we must also not bite off more than we can chew. One of the most important parts of our Lenten mortification must be the ability to persevere through the entire season and if we take on too much, then human nature will all too often cause us not to cut back a little, but rather fall away from almost all the sacrifices together. Then we are back to doing just the minimum or, God forbid, no sacrifice at all. It would be better to offer a little and persevere than to offer a lot and fail to complete our Lent.
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Marsha
My thoughts as well.
While I don't disagree, and the advice of Fr. McKenna is good, there are some who would take that to mean they shouldn't try to do any more than they know they can handle. How many do you know who would see, "But we must also not bite off more than we can chew," and that is all they'll remember! That becomes their take-away message, and the summary of the whole thing. IOW, forget the rest of it!
But it seems to me that the
most important words are,
"We should challenge ourselves and push ourselves to do a little extra. It should be a sacrifice." To that, I might add that "A man's reach should exceed his grasp." Because if you don't try to achieve something a little beyond what you know you can do, you're not going to improve. And it is by challenging ourselves to do a little extra that we will find that we really CAN do more than we thought we could previously. It is by practicing this diligent reach for higher and better that we can eventually become saints.
There are no saints who were content with the status quo, and who did not keep trying to improve their virtues and their holiness, and this is intimately related to the practice of mortification, self-denial, and voluntary expiation.
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