Lent remains a mystery
Honouring Jesus and giving up something good
Growing up as a United Baptist, I knew about Easter and aside from amazing my fellow adult confirmation candidates with memories of my own baptism (a teenaged sacrament in my former denomination and yes, full immersion), much of my early faith formation was similar to that received by my Catholic peers.
Lent, however, was another matter. My Catholic friends in university would head to church on a Wednesday (even though church was only for Sundays) and come back with smudges on their foreheads, a prayer card in hand and a sudden aversion to chocolate, television, coffee, or some other thing that for the unsmudged made winter’s bleakness more bearable.
Then for the next 40 days we would hear the heavy sighs as we headed to the TV room with Hershey bars in hand. If it’s so agonizing, why do it? We would ask, pondering the connection between honouring Jesus and giving up nightly “Jeopardy.”
They couldn’t say, just that the sacrifice somehow felt necessary. Even if they could have explained, I may not have listened. At 18, life was way too short to miss an airing of “Star Trek” or those chocolate chip cookies in meal hall.
Years later, as I transitioned to confirmed Catholic, Lent remained a mystery. I learned the what (Lent is an old English word for spring), when (Ash Wednesday through Holy Thursday) and why (remembering Jesus and his 40 days of discernment in the desert), but the how has been an ongoing process.
A solitary tangible sacrifice, self-improvement, increased reading and prayer. As a family we’ve done crafts, followed calendars of daily good works and held retreats. All have been enriching, yet I am not moved to repeat them and each approaching Lent brings an anxiety about what I’m going to do.
Was I uncommitted, missing the point or victim of a childhood devoid of Lenten memories?
I blamed my father, who in life shunned rituals; when he did something, he was all in and looked to the new and different to avoid a depth that he feared would consume him. As I carve a new a life without him to ask in person, I can admit I am my father’s daughter but with the safety of allowing my faith to lead me to the depths and back again.
Lent is an important part of our liturgical calendar but a small amount of time to spend contemplating: What have we been given? What can we give back? Where, what and who am I meant to be?
These are deep questions, but allowing space for answers enables our fuller connection to a world that needs every one of us fully engaged. For some, those answers come through sacrifice. For me, I do my best thinking with a melting square of dark chocolate.
Lent can be whatever we make it, if offered with trust in ourselves and the man who went before us in the desert.
May your journey this Lent be spacious in your own way.