I was tempted to entitle this piece, ‘I’m A Failure!’ It is just over one week into Lent and I’ve broken half of the things I’d promised God to give up, already! Then The Lord gently reminded me that He was in charge…he reminded me that I had been sick with a cold virus all week…he reminded me that it was a stressful time with life altering decisions being made…He reminded me that it is not what goes into a man that defiles him but what comes out of his mouth that can be the cause of his down fall (Matthew 15:11)…He reminded me that my inability and my awareness of it was a good thing and an opportunity to trust God more and to trust in his ability to shape my life, my growth and my happiness.

It took me back to Lent 2022 when I took part in the Exodus 90 programme. For those who do not know, Exodus 90 is a programme for men that runs for 90 days leading up to Easter (an extended Lent!) Its principles are “prayer”, “asceticism” and “fraternity.” The group meets once a week and then you carry out the exercises by yourself daily and check in with your ‘anchor’ when you can. The disciplines include fasting, a daily holy hour of prayer, upping your mass attendance and following an exercise programme. Among church circles it has become known humorously as the ‘cold showers’ programme. As cold showers were a requirement I duly jumped straight in and screamed very loudly with the best of them. Then after five weeks I gave up after getting sick with a cold virus (winter is a very bad time of year to be having cold showers.) I gave up the cold showers but I didn’t give up the programme and looking back I can now see how much I got out of it. At the end of the programme I was presented with a beautifully hand carved walking stick which I now call ‘Moses.’ My stick always reminds me that I am on a journey and like Moses not to ever give up. Our so called “failures” remind us that we cannot achieve anything by our own will and will power alone and that God our Father, as the Good Father he is, delights to see his children trying and is quick to pick them up when they fall.

This year I decided to follow Exodus 90 again in a limited way on my own. I am doing the readings and reflections every day. My monastic environment provides all the opportunities for prayer. I have built my own exercise programme using steel mace exercises but instead of a steel mace I am using Moses my walking stick, which I am hoping to add weights to. But what about the cold showers, I hear you say? Be it cheating or ingenuity, but I now enter a warm shower and slowly turn the tap to cold until I can bear it. This opened me up to thinking about fasting and ascetic practices in general. Choosing to have a little less is more effective than grand gestures and then giving up. I remember an Exodus 90 panellist on a podcast I watched last year recounting going to the gym with his father when he was a young boy. He saw all these men huffing and puffing with big weights and making a lot of noise while his father stood in the corner quietly exercising with these smaller dumbbells. His father later explained to him that consistency was the most important thing in achieving anything, not grand shows, and that this was ‘meekness in action.’

Why do I often fail during Lent? Because failure is part of the journey, getting it wrong and losing is part of our growth in wholeness and in becoming the people God intends us to be. When I was teaching I had a young boy with autism in my care who was stuck in negative behaviour patterns. His whole life was based around football and he would always want to play a match with you. The only trouble was he always had to win. Even if you scored one goal against him he would run off howling and in floods of tears. It took a lot of patience to explain to him that we could only play with him if he didn’t get angry and run off. After many, many matches, we could start to increase the number of goals scored against him, upping the goals and the positive feedback and rewards we gave him. Eventually we got to the point of winning a game against him. Thank God we were finally able to send him off to a mainstream secondary school as a fairly well balanced teenager. Most of us don’t take as long to learn the lesson of losing and can use it as a guide to discover where our strengths and talents lie.

The Israelites failed big time. They very nearly didn’t get out of the clutches of the evil Egyptians at all. When they initially asked to leave, Pharaoh told them to gather their own straw to make bricks – making their job even harder (Exodus 5:11). When we initially try and remove ourselves from negative behaviour patterns things can often get worse before they get better. Even when the Israelites escaped from Egypt they were filled with doubt and contention with things being so much harder than when they lived amid the “fleshpots of Egypt” (Exodus 16:1-5). They fail again at Mount Horeb when Moses goes up to speak with God and receive the ten commandments. He is gone too long, so they give up and make a golden calf to worship (Exodus 32). All this failure…yet they keep going…because the hope of the promised land, along with much encouragement from a skilful leader, keeps them going. It is a big hope, the bigger the hope the more likely we are to carry on.

So think big and make many promises to God but expect to fail some of them. It is a useful reminder that God is in charge not us. If we want to progress in the spiritual life we have to tone it down a bit. So instead of grand gestures do a lot of small things. Have slightly less food on your plate than going through the whole day on bread and water. It might just bring about the newness of life your heart desires. All we can do is try. Make a little bit more space for God and for others He will do the rest…

He will call upon me, and I will answer him
I will rescue him and glorify him
With length of days I will fulfill him
He who dwells in the help of the Most High
will abide in the protection of the God of heaven

Indroit for the Mass of the first Sunday in Lent (psalm 61:15-16)