It’s that time of year again – when most Catholics are either "giving up" something for Lent or feeling guilty because we haven’t.
Increasingly, it seems that people confuse this ancient practice with a Catholic version of a New Years' resolution. Contrary to modern self-help approaches, though, this discipline of fasting is not intended to be an exercise that guilts you into a practice you should be following anyway (like smoking cessation). Instead, we are called to give up something good that we enjoy (like cake), not because is inherently bad, but to remind ourselves that we do not need it - what we need is God.
By forgoing cake for forty days, we can come back to it at Easter and be particularly grateful that God has given us an abundance of food - both the kind we need to survive and the kind we can simply enjoy (responsibly). It is similar to the practice of omitting the word "Alleluia" during Lent liturgies. Certainly "Alleluia" is a good and wonderful word that expresses a good and wonderful experience of God's blessings. Going without it for a while, though, gives us the chance to sing it out with even greater exuberance at Easter!
This practice of fasting opens the door to the other two fundamental disciplines of Lent: prayer and almsgiving. If we are feeling a craving for that piece of cake, we can take an extra moment to pray for those who don’t even have bread and put the few dollars we would have spent on the cake into the CRS Rice Bowl. Those dollars, however, are just the beginning.
We often hear the term "sacrificial giving," but don’t really think about how much of a sacrifice our gifts are. Writing out a check or clicking online can become routine. If you are like me, you make your Sunday giving, food shelf donations and other charitable contributions a part of your regular budget, which means that you are not necessarily sacrificing something that you would otherwise have. I find that the real sacrifice is often the gift of time. For me, setting up those ACH donations are not nearly as big a deal as giving up one of my precious evenings to help out at my parish or volunteer at another organization. Perhaps it’s time for you, too, to look at making the real sacrifice of your time. The MinisTree at St. Richard is a good place to start for small tasks. Any of our staff members would be more than happy to help you plug into a more ongoing ministry that needs your time and talent.
As part of a healthy spiritual practice of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, I recently asked my faith formation students to consider what they will give up for Lent, as well as what they will do with the extra time they gain by doing so. I will be having them journal about how the experience is impacting their relationships with God and one another. If I may indulge my inner catechist, I make the same suggestion to you.