How to Live This Lent for Others

The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast

Ascension

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture

4.9 • 7.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2020

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lent is about transformation, but that transformation will be incomplete if we make it about ourselves. Instead of aiming for self-mastery alone this Lent, what is the key to living this Lent for others?

In 2 Samuel 7, when King David says he will build a house for the Lord, the Lord says to David through Nathan that he will not be the one to build the temple—but his son will.

Learning from this story, we see that we may want to do a good and noble thing for Lent, but that doesn’t mean it’s what God wants us to do. Ask God what he wants from you this Lent.

Discipline is great, but there’s a step after that: being generous. Asking God what he is asking of you, instead of deciding on your own, is a step from discipline to generosity, from self-mastery to deeper relationship. Aim to do your prayer, fasting, and almsgiving out of generosity.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I think this is true in a lot of ways, spiritual maturity comes down to making that switch from
0:07.6	discipline to generous.
0:18.3	Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is a sense of recents. So when it comes to every
0:22.0	single lent, what happens is people, I, maybe you do this, you do this too,
0:27.2	is we're like, okay, what am I going to do for a lent? Like, what's the thing? Like, let's go. Like,
0:31.2	how do we, how do we make this lent a lent to remember, a lent to be transformed by a lent
0:37.7	for the record books? Right? I mean, something that's like, it means something. That's really good.
0:41.2	That's a great intention. That's a great motivation. A great goal, right? I want to encourage that.
0:45.9	But it always reminds me of 2nd Samuel, chapter 7. So in 2nd Samuel, chapter 7, David, David is
0:51.2	now the king. He's living in Jerusalem. And he, he gets this, he gets this thing. He's like, wait a second.
0:56.4	Here I am. I'm living in a, I'm living in a palace. And the arc of God is living in a tent,
1:01.0	or is dwelling in a tent, right? Like, that makes no sense whatsoever. He's like, I'm living in a palace.
1:06.1	The arc of God where God's very presence is, is an attempt. That's no good. I'm going to build a
1:11.3	temple. And he says that to the prophet, Nathan, and Nathan's like, yeah, dude, go for it.
1:17.5	And then that night, Nathan is spoken to by the Lord. And the Lord tells Nathan, no, no, that's not
1:22.7	what I want David to do. So then Nathan goes to David and says, you're not going to do that.
1:28.0	You're, you're, you're descendant. Your son is going to build the temple. I'm going to build you
1:32.7	a, you know, a house for you. I'm going to build you a name like, you know, Kingdom, the last forever.
1:35.9	Okay. The interesting thing about this is we will step back and think, well, no, that's awesome.
1:40.1	David is right. Like, David is like, look at the heck, look at the heck. Look at all this stuff I
1:44.8	have. What the heck? I should do that. I should build a temple. I good thing to do. It is a good
1:49.1	thing to do. It could be a difficult thing to do. A good thing to do. A noble thing to do. All
	...

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