Yeah, it’s that time again. Wait! Wasn’t Christmas just last week? Lent begins today, despite being St. Valentine’s Day, and NO, there is no need for a dispensation. I mean, how do we expect to grow stronger and battle-ready by looking for excuses to opt out of training. We keep getting ‘let off the hook’ for Holy Days and feast days by the men in charge who are supposed to lead by example. We don’t need an excuse to sleep in on January first, nor binge on the green libation. How do we expect to be prepared to fight the good fight if we ignore that a battle is raging? We seem to have become more interested in temporal pleasures and growing spiritually lazier than becoming battle-ready. Ok, enough said- you already know this.

I can’t be the only one stumped on what to give up, take on, or generally fast from. The question is older than the dust behind my door. 

Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Servant of God, writes, “Lent should fan our desire for God into a bonfire.” After all, St. Augustine writes, “Our hearts are restless, Lord until they rest in thee.” And he should know, having spent a chunk of his life filling it with everything but God.

I’d like to think that lent isn’t meant to be as complicated as we sometimes make it to be. I’ll give up chocolate on odd days and alcohol on even days. I will do the Chaplet for half an hour, but only on sunny days with no chance of rain. Oh, and I’ll attend Mass at eight am instead of eleven this lent.

Goofy, I know. We may consider simplifying things rather than complicating them. How do we trim the fat, strengthen the lean, and prepare for war? A spiritual battle that has been raging since the beginning, and as modern Christians, we’ve gotten a little too lazy. I may be primarily speaking to myself here, but feel free to jump in and add your own suggestions.

Catherine writes, “We must desire to empty every corner of ourselves of everything, but this person called Jesus Christ…” How do we do that when there are dishes and laundry, yardwork and homework, distractions and relationships? It’s one thing if you are a monk in a little cell with no deadlines or license plates to renew. What about us busy little humans living outside the walls flooded with noise and a to-do list longer than a football field?

Enter the season of Lent. It is a time to push the pause button and re-evaluate where we are off track, heading in the wrong direction, or needing to be rescued from the frenzied fray. Lest you think me weirder than you may already, I look forward to Lent. Why? Because I need it to refocus my life on what is more important than the day-to-day junk that takes up a lot of space in my head and heart. It’s not bad stuff. It’s just stuff that really is not the priority and purpose of my existence. Everything else wrestles for a place on my agenda, pushing the more essential things to “later.” I need to be reminded that this is, but the journey and I need to stop acquiring practices that ease and food that satisfies my restless hunger that should be directed towards God.

There, I said it out loud.

So, let’s simplify and grow this lent.

1-What is one destructive thing that I can give up?

2-What is one practice I can take up to make me stronger spiritually?

3-What is one habit I can detach from that holds me earth-bound?

Give up. Take up. Detach from.

It’s a personal decision. Only I know what’s going on with me and what will assist me in growing strong and holy. God is there to help coach me, encourage me, and keep me accountable. I do not want to disappoint the One willing to lay it all down, give up His life, and surrender His heart as a ransom for my failures.

Let this lent be a reminder of how precious you are to God. He yearns for our love in return; all this stuff that keeps us occupied and making excuses is just fluff.

Remember that you are dust (beloved dust), and to dust you will return.