Someone asked me if I had some suggestions for useful penances for Lent.
I do.
For starters, in Lent the church asks us to do not one but three additional acts of prayer, fasting and almsgiving—all three.
I say additional acts because all of these things are meant to be part of an ordinary Christian life anyway. If you’re not praying, you’re missing out on the best of life.
Fasting is a non-negotiable part of becoming free. And God only gives us any goods in the expectation we will give everything away—it’s a large part of finding earthly happiness.
So (as Fr Flader has pointed out in these pages before) part of the point of these things we will choose for Lent is that they are meant to be maintained to some degree after Lent. So what changes, then, do we want or need to retain after Lent for the rest of our lives? This is one helpful step in discerning what God is asking us to do this Lent.
Another helpful step would be to ask your wife. Or your husband. Or your parents. Or your friends, or workmates, or the people you live with, about where you need to change. They should know—they have to put up with you. No doubt they will furnish you with a generous list of areas where prayer, fasting and almsgiving could be applied.
Which brings us back to prayer. A mature adult Christian has a serious prayer life. Daily prayer is the start of things going better in our life: I don’t mean you’ll win Lotto. I mean stuff far more precious like interior peace, actually experiencing God’s love, discernment, wisdom, loving better, and freedom. Some good prayer habits to take up include:
- Praying a decade of the rosary every day
- Spending 10 minutes before the Blessed Sacrament every day
- Spending 10 minutes meditating the Word of God every day
- Daily Mass (6.45am at Berala)
- One or all of the Divine Office every day
One particular form of prayer that solves many problems is daily Compline, or Night Prayer with, crucially, a proper examination of conscience.
By that I mean asking the Holy Spirit to guide you, going slowly over your day thanking God for the good things you did, begging God pardon for the wrong things you did and, very importantly, deciding what you will do instead if the same situation comes up tomorrow. It is an immensely powerful way to change quickly. Having made peace with God and neighbour, you can peacefully enter the Lord’s hands for your night’s rest.
If you are addicted to anything, or anyone, Lent is a graced time to give it up with the weekly accompaniment of someone—an accountability buddy, counsellor, psychologist or priest. We are not saved alone, or set free alone (cf Genesis 2:18).
One final area to consider might be how you rest. Rest is not amusement, it is recreation—it re-creates the person, deepening our goodness, freedom and capacity to love. Many spiritual problems come from a lack of proper rest. Some things to consider giving up in order to have proper rest include:
- Scrolling on social media
- Scrolling on social media
- Scrolling on social media
Aside from work obligations, if you spend more than a few minutes a day on social media—why? Do we need it? No. Is it a source of peace? No. Is it a reliable place to get the news? Definitely not.
Does it deepen relationships? No. Is it a way of holiness? Not really. Is it recreative? Not really. Is it real? No. What is it for then?
It’s deliberately written to manipulate you psychologically so that companies can make money from your scrolling—and make you so attached to stuff you have to spend money on it.
And this is your rest? If so, Lent is a good chance to give up social media. Just have a few Whatsapp groups, or telephone, or physically go and be with people.
And take up things you actually love to do, which give you life, like curling up in an armchair with a book, or going fishing, or playing with your niece, or having an argileh with your mates.
So ask the Lord, how does he want you to fast, pray and give alms this Lent?
Fr Josh Miechels is the parish priest of St Peter Chanel and St Joseph in Berala.