I have a confession to make: Lent is not my favorite liturgical season. I know and appreciate that it is a good season, one in which I am preparing well to enter into the joy of Easter. There is great wisdom in the Church’s cycle of liturgical seasons and I am grateful for each one and the way that it allows me to enter more deeply into the life of Jesus in a particular way, but some seasons are easier for me to embrace than others.
Fasting is hard; I don’t like to be hungry. I know that in saying that I am not expressing some unique, crazy sentiment, but rather one that is probably pretty universally shared. It is good to say directly some times though, because fasting is actually supposed to be hard, being hungry isn’t pleasant. However hunger, like suffering in general, doesn’t have to be meaningless. It should in fact serve a purpose.
This Ash Wednesday, after returning from Mass and engaging in a little snow shoveling, I walked into my house hungry and keenly aware that I was still a couple of hours away from my next light meal. I had taken the day off as a sort of retreat day and knew that I should spend sometime in prayer, but I didn’t want to pray.
I wanted to scroll social media, which I couldn’t do because I’d given it up, or to read, or play a game, or even take a nap. In short, I wanted to be distracted from my hunger until whenever I got to eat next. Recognizing this reality led me to think of those who go hungry regularly, who live each day seeking a distraction from their painful, grumbling belly. Am I compassionate towards them? Do I judge them for indulging in questionable or immoral activities rather than seeking the Lord in their need? I wasn’t exactly quick to turn to Jesus in the face of my own much less serious hunger.
Thankfully, by the grace of God, this recognition did lead me to pray for those in need and to remember that these least ones are my brothers and sisters whom I am called to love as I love Christ. The passage from St. James also came to mind, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also, faith, of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 3: 14-17)
Hence, fasting and prayer led me to a conviction regarding the third Lenten discipline: almsgiving. What does it mean for me to be compassionate towards the hungry, to feel united to them in my own hunger if it does not lead me to do anything to care for their material needs? I must pray for those in need, the Lord works powerfully through the graces poured out in our prayer. But God also works powerfully through the actions of us, His beloved people. He has made us with a sacramental nature, body and soul, and so He works in and through us both spiritually and physically. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are disciplines that engage the whole person, engaging my body and soul to care for the body and soul of others.
Though as I enter into this Lenten season I may still very much be in a place where, “all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain,” may I continue to lean into it and allow the Lord to work in and through me so that I may reach that place where, “it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:11) Amen, so be it.
Prose for the sake of Poetry 