As we enter into the Holy Season of Lent today, I wanted to remind you what its all about.
No doubt many of you will see a bombardment of messages online about requirements for fasting, obligations for fasting, obligations about penance etc… Although I’m sure it is well meaning - these messages and emphasis on Lent often cause a type of anxiety within us that makes us scared of Lent instead of eagerly embracing it.
Yes Lent is hard, yes Lent is long. But the goal of Lent is not about being miserable and self denial for the sake of it, rather it is about being led by the Holy Spirit WITH Jesus into the desert (Matt 4:1) - where Jesus teaches us how to not be overcome by sin and the devil. We participate in Jesus’ own encounter of the desert where he recapitulates in his own person, the entire journey and history of Israel. The journey through the desert is our personal intensive spiritual bootcamp, but communally as the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ we are united to Jesus the Head who leads us through the desert to become sharers in his victory over the devil.
Prayer, fasting, penance, mortification and almsgiving are all means to an end. They are not the goal itself. Our goal is union with Christ who frees us from bondage of the devil and sin. This they are useful tools in our spiritual journey and discipline, but although they are essential, they are only part of a greater whole - freedom in Christ.
So this Lent, I pray that you can enter into the spirit of Lent far beyond giving up chocolate, or coffee and then struggling after a few days. Lent is a long marathon, not a sprint. So many of us get worn out after a few days, break our fasts, forget to do prayers - then feel guilty and bad, regretting even starting Lent. This means for most of us we never experience Lent as being fruitful. For most of us it is often an incredibly unfruitful time.
Part of the reason for this obviously is to do with spiritual warefare, and the devil attacking us so we give up before we even start. He loves to sabotage us so we get frustrated and give up - despair always comes from him.
But often we are not disciplined in our spiritual life as a whole, and so don’t practice fasting or mortification much (if at all) throughout the year - and so this is why Lent for us so often is a major failure. We can’t just go cold turkey with things. Asceticism is about time and patience. Time with God, time reading scripture - so that we can hear the Holy Spirit and truly be led by him into the desert with Jesus. Asceticism isn’t only about denial, it is about training for love, training for God so that our entire life is transformed by the Gospel and we have the capacity to be filled by God and restored to the image of Christ.
So take some time to reflect on your chosen penances, and see if they are realistic for you. Check if they are motivated by the love of God and actually will help you spiritually to meet your goal of union with God. Or have you mistakenly chosen things that sound “good” on paper but you never practice in your life and so you now want to try practice it during Lent - but always fail? As Jesus teaches us “he who is faithful in little things will be faithful in great things” (Luke 16:10). As Christians our entire life should be based on practicing self control, and this Lent becomes the powerhouse that trains us and strengthens us to be able to continue practicing self control for the rest of the year, and the rest of our lives.
May the Fathers and Saints help us to understand how to make this Lent fruitful and meaningful, so that instead of anxiety, fear and failure - you have a gracefilled time of transformation and growth so that you become worthy of the fruits of repentance (Matt 3:8).
