The True Spirit of Sacrifice in Lent and Always

We Catholics are a fortunate lot. Unlike our Muslim friends who need to observe a daytime fast for thirty whole days during Ramadan, Catholics need to fast and abstain from meat only on two days throughout an entire year – Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. But on these two days, it’s fair to say that many Catholics don’t think about this obligation or take it seriously.

Fasting is a big sacrifice for most people. According to the Code of Canon Law (c. 1252), people between the ages of 14 and 60 are required to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, which involves eating only one full meal:

“One or two smaller meals may be taken on those days, but may not total one full meal. The required fast does not allow eating anything between meals,” it says, but it “does not intend the omission of eggs or dairy products.” One may fast in a more complete way – that is, eating only a portion of a single meal.

To Fast and Abstain

To fast is to go without food. And it is meant to make a person experience the effects of hunger. A theologian once said that when we get hungry even for a little while, we attain a heightened sense of awareness and alertness, which clarifies our thoughts and feelings. Fasting purifies us and prepares us to pray more deeply, for some people fast to ask God for an important grace. More importantly, we need to fast to ask God for the grace that we all grow in virtue and humility and to become more like Him.

To abstain from eating meat disposes one to make much bigger sacrifices. Of course, this doesn’t mean we should eat a meal we would otherwise enjoy – like lobsters and shrimp. To abstain from meat likewise enables us to be in communion with the rest of the world who could not afford to eat meat, those who suffer from the scourge of hunger and poverty, and those who have died from starvation.

What to Give Up

In addition to the basic regimen the Church requires, Catholics should seriously consider giving up something in addition to just food and meat on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday if they wish to perform acts of penance. The first preface of Lent is meant to prepare us “to celebrate the paschal mystery with minds and hearts renewed.”

What things allow us to be authentically free and in union with Christ? For some, it could be giving up rash judging others every day during Lent; for others, perhaps giving up being grouchy and moody while doing household chores is the real sacrifice. Some might consider giving up a few cigarettes each day or watching too much television to be deeply sacrificial.

It could be giving up an annoying habit like talking about the faults of others or burdening people around us with our complaints and tales of woe. Perhaps patience in listening to our elders’ stories which they have told a thousand times is where true sacrificial charity lies.

The Need to Do

But more than giving up things, Ash Wednesday reminds us to start Lent by doing certain things that bring us closer to God: devoting more time to prayer; attending daily Mass and visiting the Blessed Sacrament; going to confession after more than 30 years; increasing our almsgiving to the poor; volunteering to help in a soup kitchen: supporting our parish priest in his personal needs and making the effort to get to know him; visiting the sick and performing other corporal works of mercy. Things like that are sacrificial gifts to God and neighbor.

Perhaps the hardest thing to do – an act of great sacrifice even outside Lent – is not the kind of sacrifice that causes us physical pain like giving our bodies to be crucified on the cross or beating ourselves up with a whip. Rather, it is bearing our sufferings patiently (something this writer is still trying to learn and interiorize).

Blessed Mother Teresa gives us fresh perspective in her well-loved poem “Anyway”. Her words are always relevant, in Lent or not:

“If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway…Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you’ve got anyway. You see in the final analysis, it is between you and your God. It was never between you and them anyway.”