Lent: the "time gift" for following Jesus

I am in the midst of yet another hectic week. As a result, I haven't had much time to collect my thoughts well enough to post anything terribly insightful or even coherent. Today, in and of itself, has been more than a little exhausting. I skipped posting last Friday, not only because it was my wife's birthday, but because she and I gave an hour-long presentation on marriage at a diocesan marriage event. This means we're finally going to celebrate her birthday this coming Sunday.

It hardly seems possible that Lent is so close. It's less than two weeks away. I need to find some time to prayerfully discern what Christ calls me to during this particular holy season. I do know that I am going to use Trevor Hudson's Pauses for Lent: 40 Words for 40 Days. I've had this in ebook format since 2019. In reading Hudson's Introduction, he describes the seasons of the liturgical year as "time gifts." I like that description very much.

Apart from sharing that, I am not in the habit of publicizing the other Lenten practices I undertake. What I like about the format of Pauses for Lent, is that encourages the reader to "take up" as well as "give up." To give up is to subtract. To take is to add, to do positive things.

This year, in particular, the question "What are you taking up for Lent?" seems like a better one than "What are you giving up for Lent?" Even you take up fasting with some regularity. But fasting should facilitate almsgiving.

Even now, Friday remains for Roman Catholics a penitential day. Fridays that fall within either the Octave of Christmas or Easter or on a solemnity, are excepted. Just as each Sunday is a "little" Easter, every penitential Friday is a "little" Good Friday or short Lent. So, it seems fitting to reflect on Lent on the penultimate Friday before Ash Wednesday. It's also good to think about Lent before it starts.

What is Lent about? As Hudson describes it: "During the forty days of Lent, disciples of Jesus are encouraged to engage in three spiritual practices. These practices are those specifically mentioned by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: giving to the poor, prayer, and fasting" (7). Where does this idea come from? Specifically, it comes from Matthew 6: 1-18. It is from this passage that our Gospel for Ash Wednesday is taken every year!

Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are the fundamental disciplines that must be part of any spirituality that flies under the banner "Christian." So, Lent is about committing or recommitting yourself to following Jesus. Perhaps it is a time to remind yourself what it means to follow him. In short, Lent is a "time gift" given to us to repent.

Do not reduce repentance to being sorry for your sins. To repent means to commit to change. Change is hard. Practicing the spiritual disciplines will help you change. The disciplines matter because your body matter. To follow Jesus is not merely a mental or "spiritual" (used in the sense of disembodied, which is an abuse of the word, quite frankly) endeavor. It is something you are required to do "with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind (see Matthew 22:37).

Take some time before Lent to prepare to receive this "time gift" from God. Pray and discern about how you intend to use this gift.

Again, the purpose of Lent is simple. Don't make it complicated. In terms of practicing spiritual disciplines, don't turn means into ends. Keep the means, the means. As James Kushiner noted quite a few Lents ago: "A discipline won't bring you closer to God. Only God can bring you closer to Himself. What the discipline is meant to do is to help you get yourself, your ego, out of the way so you are open to His grace."

Our Friday traditio is an Older contemporary Christian song by Don Francisco, "Come and Follow." I posted this social media the Sunday before last because, well, it was the Gospel for that day.