First Sunday of Lent: Would you rather?

Would you rather be itchy or sticky all the time?

Would you rather be rich but sad or poor and happy? 

Would you rather live in a chapel with nice sisters or in a castle with a mean king?

In the conversation starter game of “would you rather”, participants make difficult, sometimes funny choices between two things. Sometimes the challenge is to choose between two awful things and decide which you would “rather” live with. 

The devil attempts to trick Jesus into playing a lethal version of this game, while cajoling and berating him. Wouldn’t you rather have a full belly and not be hungry right now? Wouldn’t you rather get on with your plans and not stand around waiting for God’s timing? Jesus keeps refusing, insisting his plan is trust in God’s will and timing.

Would you rather suffer in the Garden of Gethsemane or earn 30 pieces of silver? 

Would you rather be beaten and stoned, or safe in a locked upper room?

Would you rather be ridiculed and mocked, or stand next to Jesus in humiliation?

Would you rather die on the cross, or hide in defeat, never submitting to God’s plan for your life? 

I would like to think I am strong enough to consistently choose to stand with Jesus, whatever options are placed before me. The liturgical season of Lent prepares each of us to more wholeheartedly choose Jesus in every situation. The things we often “give up” for Lent are not inherently bad, but the practice of sacrificing chocolate or TV hones our ability to choose Jesus in the more difficult moments. 

St. Ignatius’s First Principle & Foundation carries a consistent theme that everything of this world is meant to lead us closer to Jesus. 

The goal of our life is to live with God forever.
God who loves us, gave us life. Our own response of love allows God’s life to flow into us without limit.

All the things in this world are gifts from God,
presented to us so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily.

As a result, we appreciate and use all these gifts of God insofar as they help us develop as loving persons.
But if any of these gifts become the center of our lives, they displace God and so hinder our growth toward our goal.

In everyday life, then, we must hold ourselves in balance before all of these created gifts insofar as we have a choice and are not bound by some obligation.

We should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or short one.

For everything has the potential of calling forth in us a deeper response to our life in God.

Our only desire and our one choice should be this:
I want and I choose what better leads to the deepening of God’s life in me.

— St. Ignatius as translated by David l. Fleming, S.J.

If chocolate leads me closer to Jesus, I better keep eating it. If rigidity and scrupulosity in  prayer leads me down a path of desolation, I should abandon those practices and find a new way of praying. Would I rather be itchy or sticky all the time? Well truly I don’t want to be itchy or sticky, but if Jesus is itchy I want to be itchy, if Jesus is sticky then I want to be sticky. If Jesus is beaten and stoned, I want to be hurting alongside Him.