Lent leads to Easter

Friday, Feb. 13, 2015

I hope you fail at your Lenten resolution.

Shocking as this sounds, I’m sincere in my hope. If you succeed for six weeks – not bobbling for even one moment – then you will feel proud of yourself, and this is precisely the opposite effect that Lent is intended to have.

Lent is meant to be a reminder of Christ’s salvific sacrifice. If we by sheer willpower abstain from our favorite indulgence for the six weeks of Lent, then we are tempted to claim success for our own, rather than acknowledging our complete dependency on Christ. We cannot save ourselves: only Christ can do that.

So I hope you fail during Lent, which this year begins with Ash Wednesday on Feb. 18; Easter Sunday is April 5. During these 40 days (technically, 46 days, but we don’t count the Sundays because they are feast days, celebrating the Resurrection) the Church calls us to prayer, fasting and almsgiving. 

We are not undertaking this penance to save our souls. God is not asking us to suffer so that we can be worthy of forgiveness or worthy of salvation. In fact, we can do nothing to make ourselves worthy. The sacrifices we undertake are for ourselves, not for God. He has already forgiven each and every one of us. Jesus died for us, for our salvation. We did and can do nothing to merit this. Our Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving are to prepare us to receive the risen Christ at Easter, when we will renew our baptismal vows or, in the case of catechumens, receive the Sacrament of Baptism.

We typically speak of “giving up” something for Lent – smoking or alcohol or candy – but we must shift our focus from the fast to the purpose for it. We must ask how the sacrifice we are making is serving as a catalyst that leads us to empty ourselves so that Christ can enter us. My sacrifice is also symbolic in that my physical hunger reminds me of my spiritual hunger for Christ. 

Along with prayer and fasting, almsgiving is a pillar of Lenten practice. We give to the poor not out of charity, but because we recognize that we ourselves are poor – all of us are destitute in the sight of God.  Therefore, when we give to the poor, we are giving to our own. As Pope Francis said last year in his Lenten message, “We would do well to ask ourselves what we can give up in order to help and enrich others by our own poverty. Let us not forget that real poverty hurts: No self-denial is real without this dimension of penance.” 

Lent is beautiful because it refracts the light of Christ at Easter. Through the lens of the Resurrection, my sacrifices during Lent focus my attention on the salvation offered by the Risen Christ, who out of love gave his life for us. 

If you don’t understand Easter, Lent will never make sense to you. If you focus only on your sacrifice, your fasting, your almsgiving, your prayer, then Lent will be less of a journey toward the Lord and more of a wandering in the desert. If, however, your focus is on preparing a place in your heart for the Risen Christ, then these 40 days will be a joyful time.

For me, Lent is a deeply spiritual experience when I choose a positive sacrifice, such as praying one of the Stations of the Cross every day. One year I also tried to affirm one person every day, whether it was sending a thank-you note or wishing a complete stranger a sincere ‘good morning.’ This type of acknowledgment reminds me that Christ is working in me and through me to bring about his kingdom.

Allow me, then, to suggest that for your Lenten sacrifice you choose something that will train your focus on the promise of Easter: Read the Bible for 15 minutes each day, particularly the Seven Penitential Psalms (Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51,102, 130 and 143: 1-11) and the Songs of the Suffering Servant from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (Chapters 42-53); help an elderly neighbor, or donate the money from your fasting to the poor. 

I pray that each day your sacrifice will lead you closer to our loving God, and of course I wish you a modicum of failure, so that as you turn away from sin and toward God you will seek more desperately his help and mercy.