Embracing Lent: A Journey of Humility and Grace
During Lent, we turn our hearts back to God through acts of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
If you are anything like me, you may find that resolutions to pray, fast, and give alms are difficult to keep. I can hardly go two weeks without desserts or consistently maintain the prayer regimen I set for myself.
I’d like to share with you one of the most uplifting descriptions of Lent that I have ever read. It comes from the Order of Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours and Celebration of the Eucharist:
“The purpose of the first part of Lent is to bring us to compunction. ‘Compunction’ is etymologically related to the verb ‘to puncture’ and suggests the deflation of our inflated egos, a challenge to any self-deceit about the quality of our lives as disciples of Jesus. By hitting us again and again with demands which we not only fail to obey, but which we come to recognize as being quite beyond us, the Gospel passages are meant to trouble us, to confront our illusions about ourselves.
‘Remember, you are dust…’ From this perspective, Lenten penance may be more effective if we fail our resolutions than if we succeed, for its purpose is not to confirm in us our sense of virtue but to bring home to us our radical need of salvation.”
I certainly don’t encourage anyone to take their Lenten resolutions less seriously.
However, if the point of Lent is to turn back to God and humble our sinful pride, then we shouldn’t be troubled by our failed attempts to pray, fast, and give alms.
Even our failures serve a purpose—they humble us, deflate our egos, and draw us closer to God as we seek His assistance and salvation.
Vivat Jesus!
Fr. D.J. Egan
Rev. David J. Egan, Chaplain
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