Q: When I was young I used to give up something for Lent: chocolate, icecream, soft drinks, etc. I appreciate the value of this but now that I am an adult I think I should be doing other things. Do you have any suggestions?
A: It is important to situate what we are going to do for Lent within the context of the meaning of this important season.
Lent is the long season of preparation for the greatest feast in the liturgical year: Easter, the Resurrection of Our Lord. Easter, in turn, ends the Paschal Triduum in which we commemorate the suffering and death of Christ which brought about our Redemption.
It is only fitting to precede such a great feast by a time of spiritual preparation, as we do in the Advent preparation for Christmas.
In Lent, we accompany Our Lord along the way of the Cross to his Resurrection.
In so doing we live out his invitation, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mt 16:24).
Pope St Leo the Great in the fifth century recommends that during Lent we follow Christ by struggling to overcome our defects.
He says that “for us all it remains necessary to struggle every day against the rust of our earthly nature. Whatever steps forward we make, there is not one of us who is not always bound to do better.
All of us must strive hard and so on Easter Day no one should remain bound by the vices of his former nature. And so, dearly beloved, what every Christian should always be doing must now be performed more earnestly and more devoutly.
These forty days, instituted by the apostles, should be given over to fasting which means, not simply a reduction in our food, but the elimination of our evil habits” (Sermon 6 on Lent, 1-2).
Among the habits to be overcome might be impatience, laziness, disorder, pride, impurity, self-indulgence, etc.
In addition, as I explained in an earlier column (cf J Flader, Question Time, Connor Court 2008, p 299), the Church urges us to live penance through a greater effort in the three areas of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
They are mentioned by Our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount (cf Mt 6:1-18), and the Church reminds us of them in the Gospel for Ash Wednesday.
Prayer includes all aspects of our spiritual life: constancy and devotion in our daily prayers, attending Mass more often during the week, doing the Stations of the Cross, reading some Scripture every day, meditating on the Passion, etc. Fasting can be taken in its broadest sense of self-denial in any area. This may include not eating between meals, giving up something we especially like, not listening to the radio in the car or while working, watching less television, etc.
And almsgiving should be understood as the practice of charity and the works of mercy: being more patient and kind, visiting sick or elderly relatives and friends, giving money to charities, encouraging someone to return to the Sacrament of Penance and to Mass, being more cheerful and pleasant, etc.
St Peter Chrysologus, in a Lenten sermon in the fifth century, shows how prayer, fasting and almsgiving are related to each other:
“There are three things, brethren, three, through which faith stands firm, devotion abides, and virtue endures: prayer, fasting and mercy. What prayer knocks for upon a door, fasting successfully begs and mercy receives. Prayer, fasting and mercy: these three are a unit. They give life to one another. For fasting is the soul of prayer; and mercy is the life of fasting” (Sermon 43). Thus it is recommended to do something in Lent from each of these three areas.
St Peter especially emphasises mercy: “But to make those gifts acceptable, follow them up with mercy. When mercy dries up, fasting suffers drought, for mercy is to fasting what rain is to the earth” (ibid).
Lent then is more about what we are going to do than about what we are going to give up. And if we live it well, we don’t have to wait for Easter to experience joy.
In a real sense, every day is Easter when we draw closer to Christ through our self-denial, prayer and works of mercy.