By Stuart Hamilton
Lent is my favorite time of the liturgical calendar. Most of the year can seem like a series of work deadlines and goals set by the rigors of life. It’s like a constant race from a green light to a stop light, propelling you forward in “the world” but not necessarily to your ultimate destiny–total communion with God.
In Lent, however, there is time set aside in the liturgical calendar for exercise. Not for your body, or even your mind, per se, but your soul. The spiritual exercises of Lent–fasting, prayer, and almsgiving–are meant to develop your soul, giving it prioritization over all the other demands of life. As with physical workouts, there are a few key principals to keep in mind if you want to make the best use of this precious time we’ve been given.
The first principal of any good workout is compliance and consistency. Or, as actor Shia LaBeouf once iconically stated, “Just do it!” Decide this is the year you’ll set aside the time to take up some serious Lenten goals and stick to it. As of this writing, we are already three days into Lent, but it isn’t too late to make a plan and get started. If you have a bad day and break your fast, start over. You don’t stop exercising because you missed “leg day”–instead, push yourself to get back up and move forward, just as Christ picked up his cross and pushed himself towards Calvary.
Second principal: start out with smaller, achievable goals and work yourself up to larger ones. Take, for example, the practice of prayer: If you’re not used to formal daily prayer, starting out with a rosary a day may be too rigorous for you. Start out with a decade of the rosary, prayed with total intentionality, then work your way up to a full rosary by the Easter Triduum. The goal isn’t to turn prayer into a tedious chore, but to build your capacity for meaningful time with God. As you adjust, push yourself to do more, perhaps adding daily Lectio Divina, or time for eucharistic adoration at your parish.
The third principal: “no pain, no gain”. Whatever Lenten goals you set, remember you won’t develop unless it burns. Let’s take, for example, the practice of fasting. Choosing a fast that’s challenging forces you to daily acknowledge what you’re fasting for–greater union with Christ. That’s the whole point of the season. You have to push yourself to enter into Christ’s lifestyle to a greater degree, which, by design, will be a little uncomfortable. Embrace the discomfort and allow it to shape your heart to become more like Christ’s.
Last principal: take time for recovery. Normally, in physical exercise this means “cheat days” or days off from working out, which the liturgical calendar allows with built in suspension of lenten fasts on feast days. But I’d like to consider recovery in a different light. Sometimes when you start working out, you become aware of old injuries that haven’t quite healed properly and realize you have to address them before moving on with your program. It’s the same in the spiritual life.
There are places in our inner life that are in need of Christ’s healing. Old sins or spiritual wounds which, if left unaddressed, often become the source of our worst habits and tendencies. We spend most of our life pushing past these things so we can just get things done. However, when we set aside time to pray, fast, and give alms, often God will begin to reveal these unpleasant aspects of ourselves. If that happens, don’t ignore it. Lent is a great time to take advantage of the sacrament of reconciliation, or meet with a spiritual mentor and get some direction on what you’re going through. Take time for spiritual recovery.
There are several activities offered throughout the archdiocese so you can make the most of Lent. For example, you could join the Family Renewal Project for their “Life-Giving Wounds” book study running through April, designed for those impacted by divorce. To engage in public activism, you could join me at the Kentucky March for Life on March 11th in Frankfort, KY. If you want to get involved in ministry, you can join your parish’s Walking with Moms in Need program–we have a training session Feb 27th. You can get involved in one of these activities or all of them, but whatever you choose for your Lenten exercise, remember that practice makes perfect!
Archdiocese Of Louisville Family Ministries 