Surrender !
Lent is not merely a season of giving up chocolate or scrolling less on our phones. It is an invitation to the most radical act a human being can perform: surrender.
Not the surrender of defeat, but the surrender of love—the same surrender Jesus offered in the Garden of Gethsemane when He prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; nevertheless, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). That single sentence is the heartbeat of the Christian life. Yet few Catholics truly live it. And fewer still embrace it during the forty days that are specifically given to us for this very purpose.
Why Surrender Is So Difficult
We are born with a fallen nature that whispers a lie as old as Eden: “You will be like gods” (Genesis 3:5). The serpent’s temptation was never about knowledge alone; it was about control. We still hear the same voice every time life threatens to slip from our grasp:
- “If I just plan better, I won’t suffer.”
- “If I keep my guard up, no one can hurt me.”
- “If I hold on tighter, I won’t lose what I love.”
Surrender feels like death because, in a sense, it is. It is the daily dying to self that St. Paul spoke of: “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:19-20). Our flesh recoils at the thought. Our culture celebrates autonomy, self-actualization, and “you do you.” Even many practicing Catholics have absorbed the world’s gospel of self-empowerment without realizing it.
Add to this the wounds of life—betrayal, illness, financial fear, family heartbreak—and surrender begins to feel not just difficult but dangerous. “What if God asks for something I can’t give?” we ask. The answer, of course, is that He already did: He asked for everything on Calvary, and then gave us the grace to say yes.
Why So Few Actually Do It ?
Walk into any Ash Wednesday Mass and the church is packed. By the Third Sunday of Lent, the numbers have already dropped. By Holy Week, the pews tell the quiet truth: most of us start strong and finish… comfortably.
Why? Because partial surrender is easy. We give up coffee or candy and call it a Lent. We attend an extra Mass or throw a few dollars in the poor box. These are good things—but they can become spiritual fig leaves if they never touch the deeper question: *Am I willing to let God have the final say in my life?*
True surrender touches the untouchable areas:
- The secret sin we’ve nursed for years
- The career we’re afraid to leave
- The resentment we’ve justified
- The child we’re afraid to let God call to the priesthood or religious life
- The diagnosis we refuse to accept
Few do it because few have ever seen it modeled. We hear sermons about “God’s plan” but rarely witness someone joyfully laying down their own. The saints who did—St. Thérèse of Lisieux with her “little way,” St. Ignatius with his Suscipe prayer (“Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty…”), Blessed Carlo Acutis who simply said, “I want to be a saint”—look almost reckless to modern eyes. Their lives expose our half-measures.
The Grace That Makes Surrender Possible
Here is the Good News that Lent exists to proclaim: we are not asked to surrender in our own strength. The same Jesus who surrendered perfectly in Gethsemane now lives in us through Baptism and the Eucharist. Every time we receive Him worthily, He strengthens the very capacity to say “yes” that we lack on our own.
This is why the classic Lenten triad—prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—is not a checklist but a school of surrender:
- Prayer teaches us to listen instead of dictate.
- Fasting trains the will to choose God over comfort.
- Almsgiving breaks the chains of attachment by forcing us to release what we cling to most tightly.
Add to these the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and suddenly the impossible becomes possible. Confession is the ultimate act of surrender: “I was wrong. I give You even my failure.” Many Catholics avoid it precisely because it demands the very thing Lent is for—total honesty before God.
A Practical Challenge for the Rest of Lent
If you have already slipped in your Lenten resolutions, rejoice. God does not want your perfect performance; He wants your surrender. Begin again today with one simple prayer that has transformed countless lives:
“Lord Jesus, I surrender myself to You completely. Take my will, my plans, my fears, my future. I trust You more than I trust myself. Not my will but Yours be done. In God we trust.”
Write that prayer on a card. Pray it every morning. Then watch what God does with a heart that is no longer fighting Him for control.
The saints did not become saints because they were stronger than us. They became saints because they surrendered more completely. The same grace is offered to every soul in these final weeks of Lent.
This is the secret the world cannot understand: the moment we stop clutching our lives with white knuckles, God fills them with something far better than we could have chosen for ourselves.
In God we trust.
Not in our plans.
Not in our strength.
Not in our fears.
In God alone.
May this Lent be the one in which we finally believe the words we print on our currency and engrave on our hearts: In God We Trust—completely, radically, joyfully.
Surrender. He is worth it.
This Lent.
Love, Adore, Praise,Trust, Surrender and Walk with Jesus,
Mike the Lesser