Here is a post from one of our FOCUS Missionaries, Katherine Capadano:
I don’t like Lent.
There, I said it. I don’t look forward to Lent and I have a feeling that I’m not the only one who feels this way.
I have tons of super holy friends who tell me how stoked they are for Lent every year and all I can think is, “Are you crazy?” Lent is a season of increased fasting, praying, and alms-giving. I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly enjoy giving up stuff that I like, messing with my schedule to pray more, or giving my time and money to those in need. My fleshy, proud, lazy self does not get some weird pleasure from denying itself, and I don’t think yours does either, not really. If we did, why aren’t we all living on honey and locusts year-round?
John the Baptist would probably own Lent.
I don’t like Lent. But I do love Easter. Easter is the PARTY OF THE YEAR. The Resurrection of Christ is the single most victorious and joyful event in all of history, and we continue to celebrate it with gleeful feasting thousands of years later. Easter is hands-down the best.
I love Easter. But the reality is that we can’t fully appreciate Easter without Lent. Without Christ’s Passion and Death, there is no Resurrection. That is the beauty of Lent and the power of Catholic Christianity. We don’t enter into Lent with a lack of hope. We don’t suffer without meaning. We get to follow Christ into the desert for forty days of prayer and fasting to prepare for the joy promised us in the Resurrection.
And that’s what Lent is all about. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert” (CCC 540). Lent isn’t about what we give up. Lent is not the Catholic Church’s second chance at our New Year’s resolutions.
Just to regain it all on Easter.
Lent is about entering into the desert; following Christ in the hope of encountering Him when we let all else pass away.
Maybe that’s why people say they love Lent. It’s not that it’s a particularly fun or pleasurable time, but that’s not the goal in the first place. Faithfully following Christ into the desert to encounter Him in the weaknesses of my struggles and temptations allows me to gain true happiness. Choosing God and others over self leads to true freedom, and there is certainly a joy in that.
Who’s #1?
I guess that I can say that while I don’t really like Lent, I am (and hope to be) eternally grateful for the wisdom of the Church in Her propagation of this season. I am thankful for Lent because of the fact that through it I have the opportunity to draw more closely to Christ and to enter more fully into His suffering so that I may more fully participate in His Resurrection. Lent is an invitation to more sincerely examine our lives and our hearts and allow Christ to reign in those areas that we want to control. As we follow Him into the desert, we allow Him to access the desert of our hearts knowing that He can bring life to even the deadest parts of us in His Resurrection.
So how will you follow Christ into the desert this year? How will you let Him prepare your heart for Easter? What are you willing to do to know Him more intimately? Where do you need freedom? This year, let’s look at Lent a little differently. Let’s not use it as an excuse to diet or to be more radically pious than all of our friends. Let’s look at Lent with Easter in mind. As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said,
Lent is like a long “retreat” in which to re-enter oneself and listen to God’s voice in order to overcome the temptations of the Evil One and to find the truth of our existence.
It is a time, we may say, of spiritual “training” in order to live alongside Jesus not with pride and presumption but rather by using the weapons of faith: namely prayer, listening to the Word of God and penance.
In this way we shall succeed in celebrating Easter in truth, ready to renew our baptismal promises (Angelus, Feb. 21, 2010).