An Instruction Manual for Lent – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

Lent, the season of penitence, is the preparation of the soul to accompany the Lord in the Passion. It begins now, and Catholics are currently asked by the Church not to eat meat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays, and also to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. In times of a hundred different dietary patterns and intermittent fasting, the Church sounds incredibly modern. 

The reason why it costs us more to fast during Lent than it does to show off a flat belly on the beach is known only to God and the devil, but the one who is more to blame is the latter, who is happy with you being as high and mighty as you can about your figure, and is pissed off every time you say no to yourself in order to say yes to Jesus. In fact, come to think of it, TikTok and Instagram must be the devil’s inventions. I guess he gnashes his teeth when he sees young Catholics now using these networks to evangelize. Screw him. 

In a way, the body and the soul get fat like communicating vessels. With fasting, it is the soul that gets fat, while the body gradually resembles Claudia Schiffer’s in 1993. In addition to Schiffer, John the Baptist also fasted, but for other reasons. In the desert, he ate honey (that sounds good) and locusts (that sounds even worse than intermittent fasting). Moses went 40 days and 40 nights without eating bread or water, and we imagine that when he returned he did so with the Ten Commandments under his arm and his face shining due to his proximity to God.

In our misery, we often think of the days of Lent as days of sadness. If our God were really going to die, they would be. But Christians have an advantage over the Apostles, who didn’t quite understand why Jesus went into the desert for 40 days of fasting and prayer: We are certain that he rose from the dead. So our Lenten season is not only a time of sadness, but of hope, even joy.

One of the mysteries of the Christian life is why suffering offered to God brings peace and joy. It is a message radically contrary to the one offered to us by today’s world. Be happy and … you will be happy. Christianity tells you: deny yourself and … you will be happy. Christianity, forgive me for saying so, is madness. The great saints were mad, even if their madness was for the love of God.

Lent is a time to return to God, to look again at the crucifix, to raise our eyes a little from the world around us. Today it is more difficult for a Christian to live Lent well because the welfare state seems to be designed exactly to avoid sacrifice. But whether we want it or not, life takes care of offering us pain, even if it is not only physical, because sometimes sadness, anxiety, or tiredness are worse than a cold shower in February. Fortunately, God is also worth those sacrifices when, faced with unforeseen pain, we shrug our shoulders, look up to heaven, and say, I offer it for you, Lord. It is human to try to avoid it. But Jesus showed us the way: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Not my will, but yours be done.”

Christianity is a madness, but also a mystery. We cannot understand why sacrifice brings us closer to God, but the fact is that it does, and we feel it within ourselves. One of the usual practices during these dates in the Catholic calendar is the prayer of the Stations of the Cross. Those 14 stations distributed along the sides of the Church take on a new meaning during these days. We walk, knees to the ground, remembering that we are no longer so young because at the second station we are already praying for Simon of Cyrene to appear and help us to get up and walk to the third station.

There is unusual beauty in the Lenten liturgy. Something that the modernizations of the canon, or the much-discussed Vatican II, have not managed to decaffeinate. It is not a time of guitars and joyful chanting at Mass. It is a time of silence, of naked crucifixes, of purple in the priests’ vestments, and of hymns in Latin. God is waiting for us there, at the end of the austere road, but demanding that we do not lose our joy.

As a Christian and a sinner (not necessarily in that order), Lent sometimes comes to me like winter. Each year, I find it more difficult. But it helps me a lot to walk forward, with certain austerity and timid prayer, knowing that after the mortifications of these 40 days and the Passion of the Lord will come the light of Easter, the sweets, the dances, the music, and the expensive wine. The most Christian celebration is that of light, not of darkness. This Lenten darkness is only the appetizer before the revelry.

Happy Lent to my Catholic readers! And to the rest of you, take advantage to lose weight. (God likes this self-help advice.)