In the weeks leading to Lent, many of the daily readings help put us in the right frame of mind for the fast. One of them, from St. Peter’s second catholic epistle, included the following:
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promise, that through these you may escape from thec orruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature. For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness,and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.For if these things are yours and abound, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall.
There are a number of things to notice in this passage. Let us start with the exhortation “make every effort.” We are reminded here that the Christian life takes effort. This is true at all times,but the reminder comes at this time so that the effort to traverse the “immense ocean of Lent”does not catch us unawares.
St. Peter continues: we are to supplement our faith with virtue. One of the consequences of faith is a transformation of our very selves, in this case by the cultivation of patience, generosity,love, purity of mind and body, truthfulness, and other virtues. One thing we can do is to choose one virtue and focus on it during the Lenten period.
St. Peter then speaks of knowledge. As Christians we consider least two types of knowledge. The first is what we usually think of in this context: information. This is the easier of the two to acquire and we can do that by reading books, watching instructional videos, attending lectures. The second kind of knowledge is experiential; knowledge that comes through encountering God. This is not easily quantifiable but it is even more important than the first. This knowledge is acquired through prayer, (individual and communal) the Eucharist, and obedience to God’s commandments.
Knowledge, St. Peter says, is then supplemented by self-control. As we have often said, knowledge of God has practical implications in the lives of Christians. Several of those implications, patience and chastity, for example, require self-control – the ability to not act upon common impulses and desires. On the threshold of Lent, one way to think about fasting is as training in self-control.
Self-control then goes to steadfastness, or patience (υπομονη). A common human experience is that we begin a task full of energy and enthusiasm. As time goes on, however, we slow down, get distracted, or bored, and lose track of the goal. That is not good in daily endeavors, and much less so in the spiritual life. The list given by St. Peter suggests that the continued practice of self control leads to steadfastness
Steadfastness or patience then leads to evlaveia . Here, translated as godliness, the word refers to piety and reverence. It is a reminder to us that true piety is deeply connected with patience and steadfastness. Far more than a way of acting in church, piety involves the steadfast practice of keeping God before the eyes of our mind at all times, reminding ourselves that He is everywhere present, in the loftiest and lowest mom
Once God’s presence becomes a constant in our lives, we move to brotherly affection. This allows us to look at those around us with the knowledge that Christ died for them, too. As such, we begin to desire their salvation and this affects our interactions with them.
As that desire for the salvation of those around us matures, we come to the disinterested, self-sacrificial love denoted by agape. This is where the saints are who pray for the salvation of the world, who would be willing, with St. Paul to sacrifice themselves for the salvation of others (cf. Rom. 9:3). This is reaching the state of a mature Christian. This is our calling.
This Lent, let us follow the steps outlined by St. Peter and may our Lord bless your efforts and our journey.
With love in Christ,
+Fr. Peter