YOU MAY WEAR THE RED ROBE OF CHRIST'S FASTING

 While I'm aware that Lent officially began on March 2nd, it feels that Lent started much earlier this year. Prior to Lent 2022, I often heard from friends and loved ones that they felt Lent began before Ash Wednesday. So many of my peers are in tougher than tough situations and have had fasts, penances and alms-giving imposed on them which they never imagined could be so severe. There is a dichotomy between what they wish to give up and what they are forced to give up. For example, they may wish to give up wine, but the fact that they are so overworked and so exhausted means that a glass of vino would make them sick. A great lad who I consider a first-rate saint of our times gave all his extra money to someone in a dire situation, but he felt that his offering was not enough because the person barely has enough. 

This gives rise to intense frustration because many of these dear people are, in my opinion, close to great sanctity and they want to fast and do penance and they have a desire to offer up pain and abstinence for the conversion of souls and for the good of our world that is quite frankly on the brink of destruction. But, like me, they want to do a fast that is on their terms, and in previous Lents they had a choice as to how to fast. That's the difference between this Lent and Lents of days gone by: This year the fasts and the penances are often mandatory, they are not of our choosing and rarely on our own terms. But the will of the person who wants to fast and to do penance - whatever kind of fast or whatever kind of penance - is a thing of beauty. That desire and that love of offering sacrifice and even pain for the good of other souls and of the world is supremely meritorious. Yet, this year there is a feeling of failure because many of us may not fast from that which we want to fast from, but we have fasts that we never thought would be visited upon us. It's strange that just when someone is fasting and doing more penance than ever they feel a failure for not doing what they wish to do, but their will is still beautiful and ever so generous in its desire to fast and do penance. 

A few of my inner-circle are recovering from serious illness and if they were to fast from food very often they would jeopardize their bodies' healing. When one is in pain it is harder to do penance, yet, the pain is the penance. Their pain, however, may not be how they wanted to do penance. Then they may have to indulge in the very things that they wished to give up. In order to console them, I revisited my old friend, St Gertrude the Great, and re-discovered something that didn't just speak to me, my friends and loved ones, but to all people who are trying to live as best a Lent as possible even amid - what they consider to be - their failures to fast when in fact their will is best compare to the three children of Fatima who outdid themselves doing the harshest penances for the conversion of sinners. 

One Lent, after the first week to be precise, St Gertrude had to get dispensations from fasting. She'd been unwell and needed to take regular food to restore her health. In her time, the 13th century, it was common practice for nuns like her to abstain from eating for long periods during the 40 days when we fast in union with Our Lord's 40 days of fasting in the desert. 

I'd imagined that since Gertrude is the Great that she always kept her Lenten fasts perfectly and never had to have beef broth. Even though she lived in the 1200s, she had a dilemma that many of us face this Lent: How do you and I get the full merit of our Lenten fasts when we may be breaking the fasts that we wanted to do? St Gertrude was assured by Jesus Himself that we may request that He offer to His Father the sum total of His forty days of fasting to make up for our deficiencies in our fasting.

St Gertrude was in her sick-bed and she felt bad because she was eating. She still craved the merit of a full Lenten fast more than she wanted the food that was being brought to her. The more merit, the greater her reward in Heaven. The more our merit, the greater our reward in Heaven. 

Then Gertrude asked that Jesus's perfect fast in the desert compensate for her lack of fasting, and Jesus Who is never outdone in generosity, obliged by giving her His merit. Then Jesus came and took Gertrude to His Father in Heaven. Jesus presented Gertrude to God the Father, and when she stood before the Eternal Father she saw that she was clothed in an extraordinary gown made of a red robe and a white robe. The white robe was the innocence given to her soul by the mortifications of Christ and the red robe was the merits of His perfect fast. Many precious treasures adorned her gown and they represented the many works that Our Lord undertook for the salvation of souls. Then the Eternal Father led Gertrude to a banquet and seated her between Him and His Son. 

Gertrude was couched between the Absolute Power of God the Father - the light of Which overtook her completely but which simultaneously enhanced her gown. On her other side she was lit up by the light of Christ's impeccable wisdom. There was a gap between the two lights, and this space was made for her humility and her understanding of her soul's lowliness and her faults. Her true humility had pleased the Eternal Father so much that He had the tenderest love for her. 

She was shown a conversation between Jesus and God the Father where Jesus said to His Father that He knows more about human frailty than human themselves, "I, Who am Thy only Son...know the defects of human weakness as man could not know; therefore do I abundantly compassionate this weakness." Jesus's supreme awareness of the human condition is better than that of every man and woman who has ever lived. Gertrude was witness to Our Lord telling His Father that he wanted to supply for human frailty "perfectly".  This all followed from Gertrude's heartfelt request that Jesus's perfect fast supply for her want in fasting. 

You, too, may ask Our Lord that His perfect fast compensate for your lack of fasting. You, like Gertrude, may wear the red robe of fasting and the white robe of mortification. I ask you to forgive me if I sound hectoring, but there is, however, a need for us to want to fast and do penance, our wills have to be given to this solemn ritual in the first place, but for many of us our wills are pushed into two directions of fasting, that which we want to do and that which we must, and we may be doing a mix of what we want and what we must. The two sets of fasts and penances need not be at odds. You and I may enjoy this alchemy of marrying our fasts and penances in the art of doing our best, and asking Our Lord to supply the rest by way of His perfect fast. 

Know that the condition of your will is most important to Our Lord than that which you accomplish. I'll give the last word to that which Jesus said to Gertrude: "Whoever had a perfect will to praise Me...or to love Me, thank Me, suffer with Me, or exercise himself in the most perfect manner in all kinds of virtue, will certainly be recompensed by My Divine liberality more advantageously than one who has actually performed many other things."

* * *

This post was informed by The Life and Revelations of St Gertrude the Great, published by Tan, you may get your copy at the Spirit Daily bookstore.