3 Ways to Get the Most Out of Lent

Moving beyond a mentality of obligation towards joyful responsibility

So Moses was there with the LORD for forty days and forty nights without eating any food or drinking any water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten words. As Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant in his hands, he did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant while he spoke with the LORD
(Exodus 34:28-29)

Introduction

Lent will start this Wednesday. It’s an ancient annual tradition where Christians prepare to commemorate Jesus’ death and celebrate his resurrection at Easter through a forty day period of fasting, almsgiving, and intensified prayer. It is a time of purification and recommitment - an opportunity to get back on track in your walk with God. We can see this from the rich, epic history and biblical symbolism behind the number forty:

• Moses prayed and fasted for forty days on mount Sinai, after which he received the Ten Commandments

• The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years before they could enter the promised land

• King David (ancestor and prefigurement of Jesus) reigned for forty years

• Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the wilderness before beginning his ministry

A Wussy Lent?

Lent has traditionally been accompanied by rigorous fasting and penances. In modern times, the requirements for Lent in the Roman Catholic Church have become dramatically less demanding. These days, all that is strictly required of practicing Catholics is that they fast and abstain from meat (not including seafood) on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and that they abstain from meat on the rest of the Fridays.

That laugh you just heard was from a muslim who is currently celebrating Ramadan. A group of Eastern Orthodox and Eastern rite Catholics just involuntarily rolled their eyes and they don’t know why. Don’t worry, they’ve shrugged their shoulders and are currently moving on with their day.

To anyone who might find the Roman Catholic Lent requirements wussy, I would first hang my head in shame for a moment and say that yes, they are pretty wussy. Whatever the reasons were for reducing the requirements, I think we clearly went to the opposite extreme. But then I would offer two points in response:

The Spirit of Lent

First, nothing is stopping anyone from doing more than what is required. The requirements are not targets to shoot for, but a bare minimum floor to not fall below. Catholics who take their faith seriously tend to do considerably more than this.

Second and more importantly, the goal of lent is not to challenge yourself; it is to get closer to God. While I think it may have been misguided to reduce the requirements so extensively, that reduction was in response to a real problem: the end of Lent (union with God) had been confused with the means (penitential practice).

In the eyes of the average Catholic, Lent was a shallow, masochistic exercise in legalistic exertion. The fact that penance was undertaken under the compulsion of Church law had stifled and hollowed out the freedom and sincerity that was supposed to animate lenten practice. The one size fits all approach had diminished its relevance and effectiveness.

The intention behind the reduction of the lenten requirements was that Catholics would freely choose to take up an appropriate regimen of penance, and that they would have the flexibility to choose practices which were suited to their specific situation. Whatever you think ought to be required for Lent, I encourage you to move beyond thinking merely in of terms of what is required, and to begin thinking in terms of how you can take joyful responsibility for your Lent.

With that in mind: here are three recommendations for how to get the most out of Lent:

1. Ask God what he wants you to do for Lent

You might already have some lenten practice in mind, or at least areas in your life you know you need to address. Maybe you want to lose weight. Maybe you aren’t praying enough. Maybe you realize that you’re addicted to social media. Maybe you’ve always wanted to read the whole Bible or do a Marian consecration. Whether something is jumping out to you or not, the tendency can be for us to think of something to do for Lent on our own and say, ‘Ok God, here is what I’m doing, please help me to carry it out.’

The problem with this approach is that, as the founder of my community Fr. Bob Bedard used to say, there are a million ‘good’ things that we can do. But only God has the full picture; only he can foresee the outcome of our actions as they ripple through our hearts and through history. Only he knows which of these will bring about the best good for us in the long run. He is eager to guide us into an incredible future. If we decide what to do for Lent on our own, we’d be merely operating out of our own ‘best guess.’ If we allow God to reveal what he wants us to do, we unite ourselves to his perfect plan. There really is no comparison between the two options.

Practically speaking, a forty day bread and water fast might be very ‘good.’ You could very well gain a lot of virtue, self discipline, and even holiness from it. Ditto for other popular practices such as giving up social media, sleeping on the floor, abstaining from alcohol etc. All of these are good things. I’m not saying don’t do them. I’m just saying to first ask whether they are God’s things. Do you have bigger fish to fry? Is God calling you to work on a different area of your life?

The only way to know is to ask him. Take an extended period of silent reflection. Ask God what he wants you to do for Lent, and give him space to speak. Wait for a thought, feeling or desire to rise to the surface that sheds light on your lent. If you settle on a peaceful conviction about what to do for Lent, it’s very likely that this is what God wants you to do. Often this will be obvious, sometimes it will be completely unexpected. It’s always best to run what you think you heard from God by a trustworthy and experienced Christian friend just to be sure. But we can be confident that God will speak if we listen.

2. Begin with the end in mind

You want to have a clear and personally meaningful idea of why you are doing what you are doing. What is the purpose of Lent? What would a successful Lent look like? How can I better understand and more fully enter into the mysteries that Lent is preparing us for (i.e. the death and resurrection and redemptive work of Jesus)? Specifically for Lenten practices, it’s important to remember again that the goal of our penances is not merely to grow in self discipline.

In particular, I encourage you to not do just one thing for Lent. Lent is a time for special focus on three areas: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These are the three preeminent ways to grow in holiness and overcome sin. They are meant to work together.

Prayer

Prayer grounds us in our relationship with God. When we start to get our sense of peace, security, and identity from God, we don’t cling so tightly to pleasures and possessions. The main reason fasting is so difficult for healthy adults is because part of us believes we can’t be happy if we don’t get our dopamine fix. We fall so easily into greed and hoarding because part of us is convinced that our happiness and security depend on our possessions, or the amount of money in our bank account. Prayer helps us see through these illusions, and allows us to give and fast with joy and freedom.

Fasting

Going without (whether food, entertainment, comforts etc) leads us to consume less, and it increases our discipline and detachment. This leaves us with more left over (in food, time, and resources, as well as spiritual and emotional capacity) to give to God and others. The deprivation and suffering we experience is not taken on for its own sake, and not even merely to grow in self discipline. Christian fasting serves as a reminder of our need for God, and as a training against turning to self-medication rather than turning to God.

When we are hungry, we feel a literal emptiness in our stomachs. When we crave social media or sugar, we feel an emptiness. Christian fasting gives us an opportunity to call our craving’s bluff, and experience first hand that ultimately only God can fill our emptiness.

Almsgiving

Almsgiving enhances prayer and fasting in a positive and negative sense. In the negative sense, almsgiving forces us to fast, because even when we give only a little, we still have to make do with less than what we had planned on. When we have to make do with less than we had planned on, we are forced to rely more on God’s providence.

But above merely depriving us, Almsgiving fills our hearts and liberates us from attachment. When we are generous with others, we experience first hand that it is in giving that we receive. Almsgiving teaches you that love is infinitely more important than things. You have an opportunity to see that nothing you could have bought with that money, and no other way that you could have used that time could have gotten you something that is worth more than the love you gave and received. We more clearly see that prayer connects us with the source of this love, and that fasting is no barrier at all, but a bridge to it.

3. Don’t go it alone

Another thing Fr. Bob Bedard is known for saying is that God’s word is meant to be discerned in the context of committed relationships. We do not exist on our own. Lent is not meant to be a solitary exercise. During Lent we are being purified and are preparing for Easter as individuals. But we do so together and in solidarity with the entire body of Christ.

Like any other goal or undertaking, you are far less likely to succeed in your Lenten practice without the encouragement and accountability other people. But even if you’re confident that you can do without people, someone else might need your encouragement and accountability. Either way, you and the person God might want you to journey with would miss out on the joy of journeying together toward holiness.

The help and inspiration you give each other will not stay between you. Love is received when it is given. When this happens mutually, love spreads to others. This Lent, you have a chance to start a wildfire of love. Joining with someone this Lent could be the first spark.