Lent: What’s Love Got to Do With It

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.”

Hillaire Belloc

I just love this quote for so many reasons. Of course, I would add “strong espresso and Prosecco” to Belloc’s list, but Belloc’s point, I believe, is that the truly Catholic man or woman knows the secret to living well.

If that quote doesn’t resonate with you, then maybe it’s because too many Catholics have never fully embraced what it means to be Catholic.

Too many of us have been influenced by the extremes of Puritanism and Hedonism — and in the process we have failed to truly live like Catholics.

Which is why many may come upon the quote of Hillaire Belloc and wonder, “Where are all of these Catholics of which he speaks?”.

To be truly Catholic is to be fully alive — is is to live a life of abundance — please don’t let anybody convince you otherwise.

To be truly Catholic is to know the value of feasting and fasting. It is to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.

And, believe me, this quote has everything to do with Lent. It has everything to do with the reason why we choose to sacrifice for 40 days.

We sacrifice because we love.

We sacrifice because we want to become more like the One Who first loved us and gave the ultimate sacrifice so that we might truly live.

We sacrifice because we know even the very best things in life can begin to get in the way of our relationship with Jesus and His Church.

The truth is, there isn’t one “type” of Catholic. There are as many ways to live out our Catholic faith, as there are moments in time.

Sure, we all try to follow the same guidelines, or “rules”, if you will — but every Catholic expresses their love for God and neighbor in a way that is entirely unique to themselves.

The ones who have gotten really good at loving God and neighbor, we call Saints. They are the heroes we are trying to emulate — but in our own unique way.

They remind us that ultimately, every person who makes it to Heaven will be a saint, and to reach heaven, we must strive for holiness now.

No, we can not earn our way to Heaven — but we can say “thank you” by trying to grow in love and to share that love with a world that is desperate for it.

Which is why we need Lent.

Lent is about becoming more of that person we were really meant to be — a lover of God and a lover of humanity.

That is what you and I were meant to be. It is a noble call placed upon our hearts by the One who is Love Itself.

Lent is about stripping away all that the world is telling us that we should be and it’s about making little tweaks so we can become more of that person we were meant to be — that person God knew we could be from the beginning of time.

The irony if it all, is that as we become that person, we also learn to really appreciate the good things of the earth, even more so than before.

We appreciate them because they no longer own us, they no longer control us. We appreciate them because we have re-established a healthy relationship with them.

Lent is about re-establishing healthy relationships with things, with other people and ultimately, with God.

Traditionally, we try to accomplish that goal with prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

In my opinion prayer should be the priority, and fasting and almsgiving are meant to serve that end.

If you try to envision a deeper prayer life as the “goal” of Lent and fasting and almsgiving as the most powerful tools to accomplish that goal, it might be easier to understand their importance.

I think we should prioritize prayer because of the very nature of what prayer actually is.

Prayer, in its purest sense, is nothing more than a meeting of two souls who are in love with each other.

For those who are baptized and not in a state of mortal sin, prayer is about descending deep within our own soul to find the One Whom our heart loves.

He is there, and He is waiting for you. Hard to imagine that the King of the Universe dwells within you — little old you — but He does.

We have a treasure buried deep within our hearts, and yet we waste so much of our lives wandering the world to find it.

Why do we waste so much time and money and effort trying to fill our hearts and our minds and our bellies with things that we hope will make us happy — but never will?

If we took the time to be still this Lent, we would discover that that happiness we were trying to attain had been within our reach all along — it’s just that we had been reaching out for all the wrong things.

If we “do Lent” well this year, we will stop seeking that treasure outside of ourselves, once and for all.

We will go to confession and begin to look deep within ourselves for that happiness and peace and fulfillment.

We will discover that all our longings, all of our desires can only be fulfilled when we put first things first.

God is the First Thing. He is the missing piece of the puzzle that brings all things back in harmony with each other.

God is Love. He is not just “loving”, He Is Love, and only Love can satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts. Only Love.

Try to still your hearts this Lent and discover that Love is waiting for you –and has been waiting all along, from the moment you first came to be.

Jesus is waiting for you.

Allow Lent to be a time for you to get to know the only One who can fulfill all of your desires.

This is where fasting and almsgiving come into play in a powerful way.

Fasting: to give up good tasting food and the things we like to eat helps us to hunger more for God. It helps us to grow in purity of heart and intention.

How does it do that? I have no idea, but I know that it does.

Fast from something this Lent, suffer through it, and every time you want to stick that jelly donut (or glass of wine or hunk of bacon) in your mouth, say “Lord I hunger and thirst for you above all else. Please fill my hunger now”.

Make that your fasting prayer.

Almsgiving: to give to those in need, without looking for any acknowledgment or return. It helps us to break attachments to money and the urge to accumulate more things because we think it will make us happy.

Spoiler alert: Things can’t make us happy. Money can’t make us happy. Furthermore, they have 100% probability of making us miserable if we make them our god, knowingly or unknowingly.

Almsgiving is a beautiful way to love our neighbor as ourself, as Jesus commanded us to do, as well as a powerful way to grow in love of God.

So try not to buy anything this Lent that is unnecessary. Try to hold off on clothes and shoes and filet mignon and going out to fancy restaurants and try to give good things to the poor, instead.

I want to encourage you to really dig deep this Lent. Pray. Meet God and ask Him what He wants of you.

And if you have a spiritual director, good priest, or even a really wise and prayerful friend, run it by them.

Speaking it out loud somehow makes it more real, makes us not second guess ourselves and also helps us to dig deep when we just want to give up.

Of course, it will definitely go sideways at least once or twice, because — well, we’re human.

But let’s try to put more into it. Let’s try to put one foot in front of the other and embrace “sacrifice”.

We may need to shelf Belloc’s quote for a little while, but come Easter we will all be ready to pull that quote back out and embrace the Feast. Hooray!

Till then, Good luck and Godspeed, people.

Let’s make it the best Lent yet!