One can be tempted to treat Lent as a set of rules and cultural practices that we do just because we are Catholic, without understanding the deeper meaning. But if our Lent is to bear fruit, we ought to remember what our fasting and disciplines are for. They are not arbitrary restrictions on pleasures; rather, these age-old practices of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving are those which lead to true freedom, the freedom that comes only from living in the light of Christ.
To carry out Lent well, we must remember that our religion is not primarily one of rules. There are moral and ecclesial rules and laws, of course, and these are important and ought to be followed. But they are not the main focus; rules and laws serve a larger purpose. We have our customs—I am sure that many reading this have all chosen to give up or take something on this Lent—but these too serve a larger purpose. The purpose of these Lenten customs is for us to clear the way for God’s grace to work more fully in our lives by growing in virtue and moderating our passions.
Virtues are defined by St. Thomas Aquinas as “good habitus.” Now, as the philosopher Alastair Macintyre points out, modern people often think of virtue as serving rules. A virtuous man, they think, is one who has the character or dispositions that lead him to follow the rules. Following the rules makes one good. The reality is actually the other way around. A virtuous man is one who follows the rules because they point the way to and support the good character or dispositions which constitute virtue. A virtuous man is not good because he follows the rules; he follows the rules because he is good and knows that the rules are good and show what is good.
Rules are the floor, not the ceiling. As the esteemed moral theologian Servais Pinackers reminds us, laws and rules have an educational purpose that sets us out on the journey towards fulfillment and happiness.
Every “no” has a yes behind it. We say no to murder, theft, drunkenness, adultery, fornication, lying, and so forth because we are saying yes to something else, something greater. The same holds true for our fasting and penance. We say no to pleasures like food because we are saying “yes” to spiritual things. Of course, we are both body and soul as one person, but the spiritual is greater than the material, and the material, while good, has to be directed by the spiritual part of ourselves—our reason and will, aided by grace—to its proper ends and purposes.
Ultimately, the purpose behind all purposes and the end of all ends is God. If you ask “why” enough times in answer to the question “why do I do X?” (whatever that thing may be), the answer will point to happiness, and happiness ultimately points to God, the greatest Good, Goodness Himself.
So, we are fasting and doing penance because we are saying yes to virtue, yes to moderating our unruly passions, yes to allowing God and His grace to bring about our holiness, and yes to fulfilling our purpose as human beings by doing so. Our acts of fasting and penance “bend our crooked selves straight,” to borrow a phrase of St. Aloysius Gonzaga. Our almsgiving helps us to be merciful and exercise the virtue of charity to our neighbor, and our intensified prayer helps us to strengthen the virtue of justice and religion towards God.
Over time, our good and virtuous acts, performed by the aid of God’s grace, form or strengthen rightly ordered habits. Those habits become states of character, and that character brings us joy and delight at good acts that we do, and the good dispositions within us. As Aristotle points out in his Nicomachean Ethics (contrary to so many of our movies and TV shows), the virtuous man has no need of drunkenness and debauchery for happiness, as if his excellent living was a straight jacket on him, because he has his happiness within himself.
So, Lent is a yearly starting point for deeper virtue and intensified goodness to take root in our lives. We are imitating the footsteps of those who went before us. Moses fasted for 40 days in order to meet God in the Law, the law which points the way towards goodness and virtue. Elijah fasted for 40 days in order to meet God in His word. Jesus fasted for 40 days because He is the Word Himself, whose “Light shines in the darkness, and which the darkness does not overcome.” Moses and Elijah went to meet God, but Jesus went to bring Himself, who is God, to the world.
Indeed, we live in a dark world, and a world which seems to grow ever darker. It is filled with death, destruction, and disorder. Yet we should take comfort in the fact that we have the unquenchable Divine Light to illuminate our path, to be our lighthouse in this darkness. Every year, we spend 40 days in fasting and penance to meet God in the Incarnate Word at the day of His resurrection, where He conquers death and points the way to order in the world and in our lives.
The Christian life is about conforming ourselves to Christ: imitating Him, reflecting Him in the unique and unrepeatable mirror of our distinct personalities, being little Christs to a world plunged into darkness. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men”—He who is “the Light of the world” and “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us in paragraph 1997 that “grace is a participation in the life of God.” Yes, dear reader, this all-powerful, unconquerable Divine Light is in us by sanctifying grace. May we imitate our Divine Savior, having cleared the way for Him by our Lenten observances, by choosing to participate in His Light and sharing It with the world, knowing that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
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