St. Bernard of Clairvaux asks: Is gluttony the only sin in your life? Is your appetite, your stomach, the only thing that causes you to sin? If not, then why fast only from food this Lent? In addition to the stomach, he says: "The eyes must fast from curiosity, the ears must fast from tales, the tongue must fast from gossip, the soul must fast from vice, and the will must fast from its own desire."
- "Let the eye fast from strange sights"—what curiosities do you spend time looking at or reading, which in no way provide any benefit to your life, and which may even detract from your spiritual life by distracting you from what is important?
- "Let the ear, blameably eager to listen, fast from tales and rumors"—do you listen when gossip is shared about the lives of others, or instead express that you don't want to stick your nose into other people's business? What else do you listen to that fills your mind with worldly things and perhaps even fills your heart with anger: how about the news? What do you think would happen if you didn't listen to any news for the duration of Lent: do you fear that the November general elections would come around, and you wouldn't have any idea who to vote for because you didn't get minute-by-minute updates about the debates and primaries in March? Really! We might very profitably fast from listening to the news this Lent.
- "Let the tongue fast from slanders and murmurings"—Let us never speak ill of others, nor even grumble and murmur about our circumstances. Instead, let us turn to God on pour out our troubles to Him in prayer.
- "Let the hand abstain from idle signs and from all toils which are not necessary"—What devices constantly rest in our hands that keep us constantly idle, distracted, entertained, unfocused, and dissipated? Perhaps this Lent we could set aside the phone and the computer mouse and instead our hand could hold a book or a Rosary!
- "Let the soul itself abstain from all evils and from doing its own will"—The root of all these problems is that we're constantly doing what we feel like doing. During Lent, let us abstain from doing our own will, from doing what we feel like (even if the things we feel like doing are not evil!) and instead do those things that we don't feel like doing but which, despite being unpleasant or difficult, are better choices about how to spend our time, and more pleasing to God.
If you're pushing yourself this Lent to grow in holiness, if you're taking up a serious spiritual discipline, here are three tips that might help you to get the most out of the Lenten season:
- First, give yourself permission to change or modify what you're doing for Lent. Sometimes we find that what we've decided to do for Lent is too easy, or sometimes what we've chosen ends up being unrealistic, and we might need to make a change. An example: a few years ago a friend of mine who, like me, likes to start every day with a cup of tea decided to give up tea for Lent. Instead, he started drinking coffee, which he didn't like because of its bitter taste. But after a few weeks … he came to find that he had come to enjoy drinking coffee! So his “Lenten penance” became absurd! If you find that what you decided to do for Lent is not sufficiently penitential, doing just write off this Lent and say, “I'll try again next year”—instead, start doing something else.
- Secondly, and this tempers what I've just said: If you decide to change what you're doing for Lent, always begin this new or modified discipline tomorrow rather than today. We are clever creatures, very able to fool ourselves! In this midst of a difficulty we might be too quick to think what we are trying doing is not possible to carry out for forty days. Or, in a time of temptation we might too easily convince ourselves to “lighten up.” Just imagine someone who has given up chocolate for Lent looking at a bowl of chocolate and suddenly being struck with the “pious” thought, “You know, maybe what God really wants me to do for Lent is spend some time visiting the sick … so I'll plan to do that instead, and let myself eat a piece of chocolate!” The resolution always to wait until tomorrow to change our Lenten practice, while finishing today what we had taken up in the morning, leaves us flexibility but keeps us on an even keel.
- Finally, if you know about yourself that you get discouraged by failures to keep your lenten resolutions, especially if you are in danger of giving up what you had planned to do for Lent, let me suggest that instead of one, specific task or discipline that you can either “succeed” or “fail' at accomplishing each day, you instead broaden your outlook on the spiritual life and take up a “theme” for Lent. So, for example: Let's imagine that someone has decided that “For Lent, I'm going to read three chapters of the Bible every day.” But upon finding that some of the chapters of the Bible are very long, or being frustrated by his lack of understanding, this person becomes discouraged and becomes tempted to give up entirely on their daily goal. Such a person might, instead of making their lenten discipline “Three chapters of the Bible a day,” might instead take “Scripture” as a theme for their Lent. So he might read three chapters of the Bible on one day, or he might attend a Bible study, or listen to a podcast that explains a book of the Bible, or get to church twenty minutes early on Sunday so as to read over the Scripture readings before they are proclaimed at Mass, or might decide to read several times just one verse that “struck” him from yesterday's reading and then think about it for four or five minutes in silence—all of these practices would be “on theme” for a Lent focused on Scripture. Here again, this is an approach that provides us with some flexibility and keeps us from falling into discouragement, but all the while keeps us focused on one area of the spiritual life where we know we most need to grow.
In whatever we decide to do for Lent, even though our particular fasts and disciplines may be hidden from each other, let us remember that we are all in this together, that we are all trying to grow in holiness during this lenten season, and so let us encourage one another and pray for one another throughout these forty days.
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