By Adam Brown
The child’s tugs at my shirtsleeve were incessant. “What are you giving up for Lent? What are you giving up?” He repeatedly asked as I stared dumbfounded, surrounded by books and moving boxes, a heavily stickered guitar case and other items I had acquired over the last few years.
Moving out of seminary and into the home of some friends, taking a job, and trading in clerical shirts for collar stays and ties made sacrificing chocolate seem like another life. “Not sure,” I said, and made another trip up the stairs.
My answer was a dismissive, but the boy would not be silenced. He kept hammering his point home until I made something up and continued my trek to the attic.
For many Catholics, the season of Lent can become a script that reads like the conversation I had with my friend’s son. We are living out the burdens of transition. We find that being over committed turns us into people we may not want to be. Still, the Church is tugging at our shirt sleeve, asking what we are doing to unite our suffering with the suffering and death of Jesus.
Some of the best Lenten advice I received during my volunteer year with the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers was from a board member who gave a presentation to our group. She said we had submitted to God’s will through our actions by giving a year of our lives to help others. She reminded us that through our service we had seen the face of Christ in the poor and touched others in ways that we may not have known. She emphasized we would benefit most from Lent by continuing to be open to the call of God and being gentle with ourselves.
That changed my perspective on Lent from being strictly a time of sacrificing for the sake of the Church to being a time of transforming ourselves for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Religious discipline and self-transformation are not opposed to one another. Rather they are complementary and help us to become whole.
Becoming a daily communicant deepens one’s relationship with the Word of God and works to develop a person’s sense of the Paschal Mystery. Taking time to pray and think about ways we can improve key relationships in our lives will give a person a sense of the other and will help to ground relationships. And yes, giving up sweets will make us more healthful.