As Lent begins, beware that Satan will toy with you. Within a few days or weeks, he will urge you to believe that you’ve fasted too long, that you’ve sacrificed enough of your time, that you’ve done enough of your Lenten duty of prayer, and that you’re stretched too thin to tithe or give alms.
Satan is not alone in his toying with us. Our flesh is a co-conspirator.
Our Lenten discipline begins to flag because we convince ourselves that fasting, prayer, and almsgiving are individual choices that we’ve made. And if they are individual, then we are accountable to no one except ourselves—and we are all too ready to excuse ourselves and give ourselves a dispensation, a way out.
If our self-denial is a choice, then we quickly see it as a goal, something to strive for. Striving, choices and goals live in the future. And the future does not exist because it is not yet. So we convince ourselves that tomorrow we’ll do better, but today we’re doing the best we can (which, honestly, isn’t all that good).
The devil presents this argument, and our flesh quickly latches on.
What is forgotten, however, is that fasting, prayer and attendance at Mass, giving tithes and being kind to others—these ought never be goals. Rather, these define who we are. These practices are the fabric of our life in Christ. These habits are who we are, not who we hope to be. And so they live in the present, not the future. And they ought to be done not “someday” but in real time.
Why ought these practices be our habit, our discipline, our routine? For one reason: they are (as the church fathers maintain) the way we attain the kingdom of heaven.
What does this mean? It means that we should daily cultivate the practice of self-denial—denying ourselves the various things that feed the appetites of our passions; and denying ourselves the “right” to get our own way, or tell others what they should do. It also means that our love for God and our kindness toward others should become second-nature to us, something we desire more than anything else.
So the threefold Lenten discipline is a way to reset our priorities, to get back on track of who we truly are.
Most importantly, the Lenten fast urges us to remember that we are “strangers and pilgrims on earth”; and that we can easily lose our way if we give up and give in to the fleeting foods, pleasures, and items that we unnaturally crave. The holy Apostle Peter says it this way: “I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.”
During this Lent—when the devil tempts and your flesh conspires—support your brothers and sisters in Christ, so that we each keep in mind that fasting, prayer, and tithing are the way of salvation; the way we remain on the road toward the heavenly kingdom; the way we “walk in the Spirit”; the way we maintain our life as we progress to the fullness of the Lord’s riches.
May our merciful Father bless you and be uppermost in your heart and mind this Lent.