Lenten Thoughts

Lent: Fasting, Prayer and Almsgiving

Right back into Old Testament times, fasting, prayer and almsgiving (generosity) have been seen as fundamental ways in which we can attune ourselves to God more readily.  And these three activities have always been associated with Lent.

Fasting is about our dependence on food.  Obviously, food is ultimately a gift of God and we are dependent on it for our very life.  But we can easily enough be tempted to take refuge in eating when we feel vulnerable or under pressure.  We can unwittingly think that we can live on bread alone.  It can be a substitute for relationship to God and to other people.  To do without it a little, is to assert that there is more to life that food.

Prayer is our means of opening ourselves up to God, to let God’s influence get further into us.  It means that we carve out some time in our lives to explicitly relate to God; it means taking time from activity to be quiet with the Lord.  We need to go beyond ‘saying prayers’ or using formulae to being simply ourselves in quiet before God.  It is possible to say prayers and yet not really enter into a relationship with God!

Almsgiving.  This is a rather old-fashioned word but it simply means being generous with what we have.  Being generous means that we do not keep holding on to our money or goods, but that we are prepared to give of them.  This can give us freedom from seeing our security being tied to our possessions.  It can open us up to God as our ultimate security.  It can also help redress the imbalances in our world and create a measure of justice.

Lent also asks us to look into ourselves and discern those things which diminish or impede our relationship with God and with others.  Pope Leo’s suggestion that we should cease from saying words that do harm is an example of another kind of fasting which has its positive influence in our world.

The word self-denial is often used in reference to Lent; it is a word that can be misunderstood.  It is really self-discipline that we are concerned with.  Happy Lent!

By Fr Frank O’Loughlin