The first weekday of Lent confronts us with clarity. Moses stands before Israel and draws a bright line: life or death, blessing or curse. Jesus stands before his disciples and does the same: gain the whole world and lose yourself, or lose your life for his sake and find it. Lent begins not with fog, but with a choice.
Choose life: the shape of freedom
Deuteronomy does not imagine commandments as shackles. “Choose life… by loving the Lord, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.” The law is relational: to obey is to love, to listen, to cling. Israel’s alternatives are stark; YHWH or “other gods.” We name those idols differently today: productivity without purpose, image without integrity, security without surrender. They promise much, but cannot keep a soul alive.
Divine commands are not arbitrary tests; they trace the contours of reality. God sets before us the grain of the universe. To go with that grain is life; to go against it is splintering. Lent offers a season to realign freedom with truth, not as fear-driven compliance but as love’s intelligent consent.
A tree by water: how desire is retrained
Psalm 1 sketches a human being who “delights in the law of the Lord” and becomes like a tree “planted near running water.” Desire is not crushed; it is cultivated. Meditation “day and night” irrigates the roots. In time, fruit appears “in due season”; not instantly, not performatively, but surely.
Here the classic Lenten practices make sense:
- Prayer roots us by the stream, teaching us to “heed his voice.”
- Fasting loosens our grip on lesser gods and reveals deeper hungers.
- Almsgiving extends the life we receive, making our branches a shelter for others.
These are not spiritual heroics. They are ordinary channels that let God do what he loves to do: make people quietly sturdy, green in drought, fruitful without fuss.
The daily cross: not a slogan, a path
Jesus speaks plainly: “The Son of Man must suffer… be killed, and on the third day be raised.” That little word must is the necessity of love in a world disordered by sin. The cross is not divine sadism; it is God’s refusal to save us without us. Love goes all the way into our death to raise us out of it.
“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Self-denial here is not self-hatred. It is saying no to the false self that feeds on control and acclaim, so that the true self in Christ can breathe. The daily cross is often unglamorous: patience with a child or an aging parent, fidelity to a promise when no one is clapping, the humility to apologize, the courage to tell the truth.
Importantly, the cross is not an excuse to submit to abuse or perpetuate injustice. Jesus carries the cross freely, not as a victim of someone else’s sin to be normalized, but as a Redeemer who names evil and overcomes it. To take up the cross is to choose costly love with freedom and prudence.
What profit? The quiet losing that saves
“What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?” The danger is not only greed for money; it is the slow forfeiture of the self to distraction, endless optimization, and fear of being ordinary. One can build a flawless résumé and hollow out the heart.
Losing one’s life “for my sake” is not nihilism; it is attachment to a Person. It looks like:
- Returning a message you dread, because reconciliation matters more than image.
- Letting a colleague shine without angling for credit.
- Guarding Sunday worship when deadlines press.
- Choosing hidden service over visible achievement.
- Praying when you feel nothing, because God is worthy.
In these small renunciations, the soul grows roomier. Paradoxically, joy increases. We do not become less ourselves; we become more truly ourselves; because we are becoming his.
Practicing “choose life” today
Concrete steps help desire take a shape:
- Open Scripture before screens. Read Psalm 1 slowly. Ask: What waters my roots? What dries them?
- Fast from a compulsion that owns you; one app, one snack, one reflex to reply; and offer the discomfort for someone who suffers.
- Make one act of almsgiving with a name attached: a bill paid, a meal delivered, a donation sent with prayer for a specific person.
- Carry a particular cross intentionally: accept one inconvenience without complaint and turn it into intercession.
- End the day with a brief examen: Where did I cling to God? Where did I clutch at lesser gods? Conclude with “Jesus, I trust in you.”
Hope near at hand
“Repent,” Jesus announces, “for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Repentance is not primarily looking backward in shame; it is turning toward a Presence already near. The King has walked this road, shouldered this cross, and stepped out of this tomb. In the Eucharist he plants us by living water and gives himself as bread for the journey.
Today the choice is before us again, not as a threat but as an invitation: life or death, blessing or curse. Choosing life looks like loving the Lord, heeding his voice, holding fast to him; one small fidelity at a time, all the way to Easter.