Spiritual Peaks
A number of years ago, I read about an Olympic swimmer and was interested to learn about what athletes call “peaking”. Athletes need to take part in various meets to qualify for a higher level of competition. Peaking is the training process by which they put themselves into the best possible condition, both physically and psychologically, so that they are at the peak of their ability at the time of an important competition.
The process will vary with the type of competition and the individual abilities of the athlete, and, of course, it is not possible to remain always at the peak of one’s abilities. Nevertheless, the idea of “peaking” seems to me to be an excellent illustration for the discipline of Lent. Easter is the peak of the Church’s liturgical year, the celebration of the greatest glory of our faith, the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus. It is a celebration in which we are called to join Him and to be one with Him in His dying and rising to the fullness of His divine life.
As the peak celebration of our faith, it is appropriate during Lent to act as spiritual athletes and to bring ourselves to the peak of our belief and behavior as Christians. St. Paul urges us to such a course of training: “Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one.” (1 Cor. 9, 24-25)
Athletes undergo serious physical training, and it is necessary that our Lenten peaking express itself in our physical behavior, but the most important training is the psychological focus on our goal, to share in the resurrected life of Jesus. “This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3, 13-14)
If we spend our Lent in making Him our goal, we will come to Easter well- prepared to share in the glorious joy of His resurrection!
Sr. Gabriela of the Incarnation, O.C.D.