Millennial Lenten Reflections: The Commandments for Dummies

Editor’s Note: The following is part of Millennial Lenten Reflections, a blog series in collaboration with Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. Short reflections on the day’s readings, written by young adults from FMS and other organizations, will be posted everyday throughout Lent. 

Today’s Gospel is a simple, straightforward exchange between Jesus and a scribe—you could almost call it “The Commandments for Dummies.”

There are two commandments that stick out before all the others: honor your one and only God and no other, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. We have taught our children from day one to treat others as they would like to be treated, and, for the most part, the Golden Rule stays with us well into adulthood. But honoring no other God but ours sometimes gets away from us, it seems.

We are so constantly distracted by texting, tweeting a play-by-play of our day, or binge-watching Netflix that we have basically turned our phones into modern-day deities. I’m just as guilty as any of this, constantly watching and rewatching shows.

But there is no better time to question where our attention is going than Lent. Instead of being glued inches away from anything with a digital screen, take a step back and realize these things in our hands are distractions and often lead to temptation, and they don’t forgive sins. Only God can do that. Show Him a little extra love instead of creeping on Facebook for the hundredth time.

Nate Marsh is the communications associate at Franciscan Mission Service in Washington, DC. He is a 2014 graduate of La Roche College in Pittsburgh, PA.