The only way out is through (Fr. Mike Schmitz)

   Why couldn’t God just take the people of Israel from the place of slavery to the place of promise? Why did they have to go through the desert? Because they needed training. They didn’t know how to live as free people. 

   God is giving us this desert of Lent because we are like the people of Israel: I just want to be done: Lord, just tap me on the head and make me look like Jesus, automatically! But we need this training; we need this place of the Way, because we are called to be people we are currently not, able to do something that we currently cannot. 

   So God is leading us into the desert, where all the things we trusted are finally put down. That’s what Lent is. We’re led into the desert where we are just invited to put down all of the things we trusted in. The desert is a place of training. The desert is a place of testing. The desert is a place of trial. But it’s also the place where all the things I’ve trusted in are absent. All our crutches, all our comforts, are absent. We put down those things we use to buffer between us and life, the distractions, the noise, the diversions, all the things we hold onto that will help us from having to acknowledge that we are not yet who we should be. 

   And so here, at the beginning of Lent, you are entering into a place of training, of testing. So it can’t just be the usual. It can’t just be the status quo. It can’t just be the normal thing I always give up. I can’t just do the same thing I always have done and expect a different result, because we are called to do something new, to go somewhere new, and that means putting down something old. 

   Whenever we find ourselves trusting in ourselves rather than in God alone, that’s what we have to be willing to put down. It will be difficult. It will be difficult. 

   What am I training for? What am I trying to become? 

    I want to be able to live like Jesus. I want to be able to love like Jesus. I want to be able to trust like Jesus. That means I have to go from not-knowing to knowing. That means I need to go from not being able to being able. It is frustrating. 

   And the only way out is through. 

--Excerpt from
Fr. Mike Schmitz’s homily,
Hallow App, Lent,
March 2, 2025

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