Lenten Path to Life: the "Road Less Traveled" - Thursday after Ash Wednesday

A day before Ash Wednesday is like standing at a division of the road.

Upon this division one road will take us to a life of carnal and sensual pleasure to self-destruction. This path is like a life of lethal addiction. On the other hand, the other path will take us to a life of challenges and even tribulations but to eternal life beyond death.

Which road to take? The former one is tempting, while the latter one may make us wonder if we should take as it does not seem appealing to our senses.

It is like what Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken”, reflects.

Robert Frost wrote:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a 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.

Robert Frost has taken the path that had been less traveled, and this choice has made all the difference. Our Lenten journey through the gate way of Ash Wednesday is like “the Road Less Traveled” , and traveling through this makes all the difference.  And the Scripture Readings for Thursday after Ash Wednesday (Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Matthew 9:22-25) tell what “the Road Less Traveled” for Lent means.

For those who receive ashes on their foreheads and entered the holy season of Lent on Ash Wednesday, you have chosen “the Road Less Traveled”, the latter path of life, not the former path of death.

In the First Reading (Deuteronomy 30:15-20), Moses tells that following God’s way, guided by His commandments in Torah, is the way of life and prosperity, enjoying His blessings. In contrast, following other things is a way to be cursed and perish.

To keep the Israelites from paths of destructions – to empower them to fight temptations toward destructive and addictive self-pleasure path, God gave the Law, the corpse of commandments, to them through Moses.

Now, in the Gospel Reading (Matthew 9:22-25), Jesus tells that the way of life means to lose one’s life for the sake of him and his truth, while our attachment to our own lives cannot save us. And he foretells that he is the one to demonstrate what he means by this as he is destine to go through the Passion into death.

Going on our Lenten journey, guided by Jesus and his words, empowered by the Holy Spirit, means to walk through the way of life that Moses speaks for following God’s commandments and that Jesus speaks for overcoming our attachment to our own lives for his sake, just as he is not attached to his earthly life for the sake of the Father’s will.

Is your Lenten commitment to prayer, fasting (abstinence), and almsgiving, keeping you on the right path of life?

Are you praying, fasting, and giving alms, out of obligatory attitude – or to make you look good or pious?

Or, are you doing these because you love God with all your heart, being, and strengths (Deuteronomy 6:5), loving His Law, as reflected in Psalm 119?

The fruits you will bear (i.e. Matthew 7:17-20; Luke 6:43-45; John 15:1-5, 16; Colossians 1:10; cf. Galatians 5:22-23) upon completing your Lenten journey will tell.

Yes, the difference of our choice in taking “the Road Less Traveled” for Lent is found in the fruits.