We are down to our last days of Lent, and I pray your efforts and sacrifices in this holy season have brought you closer to God. Whether you feel they have or not, we have rich opportunity to experience God’s saving love for us in the upcoming Holy Week and Easter celebrations.

As I offered daily Masses this Lent, I became aware of a recurring theme that jumped out at me more this year than any other – distraction.

Let’s be honest: We all get distracted at times. It could be in your family as you talk to your spouse or children while reading or looking at your phone. It could be at work when your mind is elsewhere and not on what you need to accomplish. And it could be in your relationship with the Lord and the time spent with him.

For me, Lent is a great time to get rid of distractions and to become more focused on what’s most important. It’s a time to open my eyes and ears and become more aware of what’s going on around me and within me. It’s a time for me to be more present to those around me and to God. 

We may think of distraction in relation to our digital age of never-ending communication, but we see it on full display in the scriptures as well. It’s part of our human condition and something we need to fight.

Three particular gospels during Lent brought this point home to me. The first was on March 8, and it was when the mother of James and John asked the Lord if her sons could be at his right and left in the kingdom. (Matthew 20:17-28) In Mark’s telling, James and John themselves ask Jesus the question.

Here’s what’s amazing about that: By the time they asked the question, Jesus had predicted three different times that he was going to be persecuted and put to death. Three times! They had other things on their mind, like power and prestige. They were distracted by their own selfishness and lost sight of what was to come, which was the salvation of the world.

The very next day, the gospel at Mass was the story of the other Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), the poor man covered in sores who lay outside a rich man’s house day after day as the rich man dressed in the finest clothes and ate sumptuously. Lazarus “would have gladly eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table,” and “dogs even used to come and lick his sores.”

The rich man notices Lazarus only after he has died, and he calls up to Abraham to ask if Lazarus would “dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.” As you recall, Abraham tells him there is a great chasm that cannot be crossed.

I thought about how many times this rich man would come out of his fine house, walk right past Lazarus and not even see him. As far as we know, the rich man didn’t call the police to have him escorted away. He didn’t yell at Lazarus to get away from the front gate. He didn’t cause any trouble for Lazarus. He just didn’t see him, distracted by his riches, comforts and all the good things in life that went along with being wealthy in his community. 

A little over a week later, the gospel was the parable story of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple. (Luke 18:9-14) The Pharisee went to a prominent spot in the temple and “spoke this prayer to himself,” as Luke describes it, thankful that he is “not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector.”

In the meantime, the tax collector stays in the back of the Church is saying, “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” 

The Pharisee fasted, paid his tithes, and apparently did everything he was “supposed” to do, except focus on what was important. In the end, he was so proud of himself that he missed the point of prayer, and that God was trying to work in him. 

The tax collector, though he was doing what he was not supposed to do, focused on his need for God’s mercy. He’s collecting money from his own people on behalf of their enemy, the occupying government of Rome. He’s probably cheating, collecting more than is due and saving the extra for himself. But he’s aware enough to sincerely seek forgiveness.

Jesus tells us that the tax collector “went home justified,” not the Pharisee.

When I hear confessions during Lent, people often say that they have stopped doing their Lenten sacrifice. It is often not a conscious decision to stop. It just happens as our focus shifts more to other things. I tell them there is always time to get back on track in doing what God asks of us.

I pray that this Lent and the upcoming Holy Week celebrations will help you become more focused and less distracted. I think this is what the Lord asks of us in our relationship with him and with each other.

Though it’s a little bit early, I wish you a happy and blessed Easter. May we focus on what is most important, that Jesus came to redeem us, to defeat sin and death, and to ultimately bring us to eternal life with him. And may our focus on God’s love for us allow the Lord Jesus to shine through in all the activities of our lives and remind us of the importance of doing God’s work.

(Msgr. John Enzler, the president and CEO of Catholic Charities of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, writes the “Faith in Action” column for the archdiocese’s Catholic Standard newspaper and website and for the archdiocese’s Spanish-language El Pregonero newspaper and website.)