Not Taken by Robert Frost:
I shall be telling with this sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
When the Scriptures speak of denying ourselves, they usually mean we are to deny that part of ourselves that leads to sin, to be anything other than who we truly are. Other times we deny ourselves not as an avoidance of sin but as a sacrifice out of love. Self-denial is not part of our culture’s image of the “good life.” But neither is Jesus’ call to deny oneself to be understood as self-abasement or giving up things for just for the sake of doing it. Just giving up things does not make us Christian; it will only make us bitter and empty.
Pope Francis in his Lent 2014 message reminds us: “Lent is a fitting time for self-denial; we would do well to ask ourselves what we can give up in order to help and enrich others by our own poverty. Let us not forget that real poverty hurts: no self-denial is real without this dimension of penance. I distrust a charity that costs nothing and does not hurt.”
Before making that next purchase, reacting to someone who has hurt you, looking away from the suffering eyes of a hungry child, or avoiding the grief of a neighbor or friend, ask yourself this fundamental question: Is this who God created me to be? Is this the most loving way? It is not always easy to choose the path of discipleship. We don’t know whether the poet chose the right path but we do know that for us the path of discipleship—the road of self-denial for the sake of love of God and love of neighbor—can make all the difference.
Sr. Terry is the Executive Director of RENEW International and a Dominican Sister from Blauvelt, NY.