Daybreaks: Daily Reflections for Lent & Easter

by Ron Rolheiser, OMI

“Is this not, rather, the fast that I choose:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
setting free the oppressed,
breaking off every yoke?”

(ISAIAH 58:6)

“Too few of us admit that we carry a lot of anger inside of us, that there are places in us that are bitter and resentful, and that there are certain incidents in our lives that we won’t forget and people we won’t forgive.

To camouflage our anger, we like to make a public display of our generosity and goodness. We tend to make a show to family and friends of how we are by praising someone lavishly and then, almost in the same sentence, call someone else a name, slander someone, or speak viciously or sarcastically about someone.  

This proclivity to divide others into either angels or demons is a sure indication that anger is inside of us. We make a display of praising certain people that’s really meant more to publicly exhibit how nice we are than to highlight someone else’s virtues. Then we complain bitterly about how awful some other people are and how we are forever surrounded with idiots. Both the praise and the complaint testify to the same thing. We are living with anger. 
 

Honesty and humility should eventually bring us to admit this. We all carry some anger, and we should not deceive ourselves on this. We need courage and honesty to face up to the anger and do our best – with the help of God – to let it go” (5).   

I grew up thinking that fasting during Lent is synonymous to dieting. But not so now. The goal of Lenten fast: to shed myself off of things that estrange me from others and from God – a freer, more loving, encounter.