Lenten pillars help Catholics draw closer to God

Intermountain Catholic

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SALT LAKE CITY — On the first day of the Lenten season, Catholics are marked with ashes, either as a cross on the forehead or sprinkled on the head, a reminder that they are creatures who will die and return to dust.

The ceremony of Ash Wednesday also is a call to “turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel,” as the minister who distributes the ashes may say instead of “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.”

A forehead marked with ashes is a very public sign of the beginning of the period of prayer, fasting and almsgiving that is meant to result in “metanonia” – a spiritual conversion of turning from sin and toward God.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday, just in time for the Paschal Triduum, at the end of which comes the resurrection of Jesus Christ at Easter.

During this penitential season, Catholics are called to practice the three pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. They may seek the Lord in prayer by reading Sacred Scripture or other spiritual works, practice self-control through fasting, and serve the least of their brethren by giving alms.

Prayer

The Catholic Church has a rich tradition of prayer, which St. John Damascene called the unveiling of one’s mind before God.

“God has always called people to prayer,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, noting the numerous examples of prayer recorded in the Old Testament as well as “the perfect model of prayer” of Jesus.

“Jesus teaches his disciples to pray with a purified heart, with lively and persevering faith, with filial boldness,” the Catechism states. “He calls them to vigilance and invites them to present their petitions to God in his name.”

The Church offers three “expressions of prayer:” vocal prayer, such as reciting the Our Father; meditation, which is a quest to confront oneself in what was read; and contemplative prayer, which focuses attention on the Lord – “I look at him and he looks at me,” as a peasant told St. John Vianney about the time he spent kneeling in front of the tabernacle.

There are various forms of prayer: blessing and adoration, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, contrition and praise. Each form helps the person who prays deepen his or her relationship with God.

Lent is a season during which Catholics focus on renewing that relationship, and conversations with God during prayer are encounters that bring one’s human will into union with Christ.

Fasting

During Lent, all Catholics 14 years of age and older are required to abstain from eating meat on Ash Wednesday and all Fridays during the penitential season, unless a particular Friday is a solemnity. (For a complete list of requirements, see p. 10.)

Among the many reasons to limit our eating and drinking are to obey God, to practice self-discipline, to express our hunger for God, to show solidarity with the poor and to make satisfaction for sins, all in hopes of obtaining a heavenly reward.

Jesus himself gave directions on how to fast. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says his followers are not to look dismal when they fast; rather, “anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

Expounding on the theology of fasting, St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica states that excess fasting must be avoided: a person must eat enough food to sustain life and maintain sufficient strength to do “the works to which he would otherwise be obliged.” In reply to those who would fast to excess, Aquinas quotes St. Jerome: “He who immoderately afflicts his body either by eating too little food, or by taking too little sleep, offers a sacrifice of theft.”

St. Francis de Sales offers a similar caution on the need for moderation in fasting. Although he suggests undertaking fasting on “some days beyond what are ordered by the Church” because of the spiritual benefits of fasting, he warns that “A want of moderation in the use of fasting, discipline and austerity has made many a one useless in works of charity during the best years of his life.”

Writing in the fourth century, St. Basil the Great echoed Christ’s teaching that people who are fasting should maintain “a joyful attitude, as befits holy people. No one who desponds is crowned, no one who sulks sets up a trophy of victory. Do not be sullen while you are being healed. It would be absurd not to rejoice over the health of your soul, but rather to be distressed over a change of diet and give the impression of setting more store by the pleasure of your stomach than by the care of your soul. For satiety brings delight to the stomach, whereas fasting brings profit to the soul. Be of good cheer, for the physician has given you a medicine that destroys sin.”

Fasting is an ancient gift through which amends to God may be made, St. Basil adds. “Fasting brings one close to God, and … indulgence drives away salvation. Once you descend to indulgence, you are on the road to perdition.”

In keeping with Church teaching, Basil states that fasting is not only refraining from food but also “consists in estrangement from vices” such as insulting others and anger.

“Anger is inebriation of the soul, making it deranged, just as wine does,” he writes.

Following Vatican II, the previous strictures on fasting were lessened. Nevertheless, “the necessity of an asceticism which chastises the body and brings it into subjection is affirmed with special insistence by the example of Christ himself,” states the apostolic constitution Paenitemini (On Fast and Abstinence) by Pope Paul VI.

An intimate relationship exists between the external act of penitence and inner conversion; this “is affirmed and widely developed in the liturgical texts and authors of every era,” Paul VI writes.

Continuing the theme of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II said in his general audience on March 21, 1979 that the practice of fasting is “not only a ‘vestige’ of a religious practice of past centuries, but that it is also indispensable for the man of today, for Christians of our time. … Fasting in the time of Lent is the expression of our solidarity with Christ. Such was the meaning of Lent throughout the centuries and such it remains today.”

Modern technology allows people to satiate themselves with sensations, so “modern man must fast, that is, abstain not only from food or drink, but from many other means of consumption, stimulation, satisfaction of the senses,” he added.

“Renunciation of sensations, stimuli, pleasures and even food or drink is not an end in itself,” Pope John Paul II said, but rather creates conditions for people to open themselves to the spiritual and to God.

Pope Francis has added to papal teaching on fasting. In a 2018 homily, he suggested that people should ask whether their fasting helps others; if it doesn’t, it’s inconsistent with true Christianity, he said. In his 2022 Lenten message, he prayed, “May the corporal fasting to which Lent calls us fortify our spirit for the battle against sin.”

Pope Francis also has suggested fasting from unkind words, from sadness, from anger, from pessimism, among other activities, and replace these with kind words, gratitude, patience and hope.

Almsgiving

The giving of alms is one way to share God’s gifts — not only through the distribution of money, but through the sharing of time and talents. As St. John Chrysostom said, “Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs.”

Almsgiving, or giving money or goods to the poor, is “an act of penance or fraternal charity” that is “a work of justice pleasing to the Lord,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church states. Among the Church ministries for which collections are taken up during Lent are the Church in Central and Eastern Europe, the National Black and Indian Missions, Catholic Relief Services’ Rice Bowl and the Holy Land.

While the proscriptions for Lenten fasting are strictly spelled out, Catholics are asked to give alms according to their circumstances.

The dictionary defines almsgiving as donating money or food to the poor, but the Catholic Church expands that definition to include giving not only money or goods, but also performing other acts of charity.

“The works of mercy are charitable actions by which we come to the aid of our neighbor in his spiritual and bodily necessities,” the Catechism states. “Instructing, advising, consoling, comforting are spiritual works of mercy, as are forgiving and bearing wrongs patiently. The corporal works of mercy consist especially in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead.”