Lenten Renewal

Man, did I get really tired really fast of seeing and hearing the phrase "give up" these past couple weeks. Of course, I refer to "give up" in the context of "What are you giving up for Lent? I gave up blah blah blah for Lent". Most of us in America, at least those of us that understand what ashes on someone's forehead on Wednesday means, know that when it comes to Lent, people get really caught up in 'giving something up' for Lent, meaning that for a 40+ day period they will attempt to stay away from something or another, whether it's a particular food, social media, or a "bad habit" that in all likeliness will return as part of their regular routine during the first week of the Easter season.

No, I'm not degrading the sacrifice and people's intentions to "give up" something for Lent. I'm just slightly burnt out after hearing something asked more regularly than the question "What high school did you go to?" gets asked in the St. Louis area. Because the phrase "give up" is so surface level to the purpose of Lent, so so easy, and yet so many people still make it sound like a chore, like a kid who is being forced to mow the lawn against his will. Well, kid, mowing the lawn isn't all that bad and it is so much easier than other acts you have to do to maintain a house, just like "giving something up" is easier than other acts we can and need to do during Lent to maintain our spiritual lives.

All right, so I've already used GU so many times that I'm sick of it again and I'm sure you're sick of it too, so I'll just use the initials here on out. Anywho, when people say GU in reference to Lent, I think what they really mean is "Sacrifice" and perhaps what mean is "Fasting". At least, based on my experiences that's the case.

As I started to take Lent more seriously after my reversion to Catholicism during college, I tried to take on multiple huge tasks of things. I began to divide my penitential acts between two categories, sacrifices and commitments. I would sacrifice or GU two or three things and I would also try to commit myself to a particular action or duty throughout the Lenten season. I've come to the realization that what I was trying to do, and what I am currently trying to do, is summed up in three categories, not two. Those categories are Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving.

There's many good reasons why each Ash Wednesday, the Catholic Church uses Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18 as the Gospel reading at Mass. One of the big reasons is because it highlights the three components of penance that we need to be doing each Lent. This Gospel passage tells us how important it is to pray, to fast, and to give alms as acts of penance. These acts are not necessarily always individual, either, but can be interwoven, combined for one centralized purpose. Moreover, the Gospel tells us that we should do these acts not for personal gain, not for self-gratification or to improve ourselves in a narcissistic sense, but to do these things because there are people who need our help AND there are things that we let get in the way of God's will in our lives.

Can I also take a break for a moment and say that the Church's requirements for Fasting and Abstinence on Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent are really not all that bad. Really, they should be even more challenging. Steven D. Greydanus, a man I frequently reference in my posts, a film critic as well as a Catholic Deacon, has pointed out from time to time how the fast requirements in the Orthodox, Jewish, and Eastern Rite Catholic faiths are much much more strict than our Westernized American version and how weak our version is.

Really when you think about it, how hard is it? For two days of the year, we restrict ourselves to 1 whole meal but we're still allowed a couple of snacks and all the water we want. That's the only fasting requirement of Lent. For Friday food abstinence, we just cannot eat meat, which in reality is just any warm blooded, flesh creature, but we can still have 3 normal sized meals and substitute fish for meat. Is that really that challenging? Our ancestors, who lived in greater poverty than we did, had greater restrictions on when they could eat meat, dairy products, fish, and had much more limited diets during Lent, and somehow they and the faith survived into our present times!

The reason I bring this up is because when we complain about the requirements and just talk about them on the surface level, it does three things. It diminishes the acts themselves, it confuses and turns off people who are not Catholic or believers of any kind, and it undermines the true poverty that starving people face every day around the world. When we focus on "how hard" it is to GU something or to restrict our diets on particular days, we lose focus on the purpose of those acts and it takes away any meaning or wisdom gained when we do those acts.

If people outside of the Catholic faith, especially those with heavy doubts about God, just see a bunch of miserable whiners complaining about simplistic restrictions, are they going to pursue interest in God or Catholicism or are they going to think to themselves "Well why would anyone want to be like these people if this is the case?". And finally, there are so so many people in this country and in countries worldwide that struggle just to have one solid meal each day, much less gathering food scraps and drinking good water. Just because they do not have people around them stuffing their faces on fasting days nor are surrounded by steaming plates of gluttony does not mean that they do not suffer and struggle any less than we do. In fact, it would be prudent of us to act charitably DURING LENT for those poor starving people by giving alms to them or saying prayers in our hunger for those who are truly hungry.

So, my whole point here is that we need to refocus on the true purpose of Lent. It's not just to GU one silly thing for a short period of time. It's not just to gripe and moan about food restrictions for a few days of the year (though really all Fridays should be meatless for Catholics, but we're not back to that strength of faith yet). Lent is about repenting of our sins. How do we repent? What's the best way to repent? By practicing prayer, fasting and almsgiving. All three, hopefully combined, but if not at least doing something involving all three during the Lenten season. We need to challenge ourselves. We all know that challenge is the best way we grow and strengthen our resolve. If we want a stronger faith and a stronger community, let's challenge ourselves through these three penitential acts and not complain along the way.

For further reading on my opinions about Lent and penitential practices, here's a post I wrote a couple years ago in defense of food and social media fasts.