Lenten Virtue that Lasts

By Denise Fath

Lent is nearly here and I find myself asking: what if all American Catholics embraced the challenge of the season and fostered lasting change? Immersed in comfort as we all are, there’s a strong impulse to reject, or at least to water down, the Church’s invitation to follow Jesus out into the wilderness by creating our own mini deserts. But even when we seriously commit, it’s common to take on practices that temporarily strengthen our wills, only for that increased virtue to disappear once Easter comes. What we need now is to view Lent as a season to grow in holiness such that we don’t lose the gains we make.

For St. Augustine, Lent was about re-ordering our desires so that we love God above all else (not just in word, but in action).¹ When we view the season as a training ground for love and humility, it’s easier to envision a Lent that permanently changes us. Small growth that we sustain the rest of the year will serve our souls far better than heroic penances whose fruits perish in Easter.

But before determining in what ways we might change, let’s start with why we need to be changed in the first place.

Back to the Beginning: Sin in the Garden of Eden

Due to original sin, we fallen humans have an inclination to sin, which the Church terms concupiscence. Lent is a time of special fasting, almsgiving, and prayer to specifically combat what the ancients called the threefold concupiscence: “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life” (1 John 2:16).

These sins are not a new struggle for mankind. In fact, they’re present at the beginning of our history. Back in the Garden of Eden, we find Eve tempted in these three ways right before she chooses to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit.

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate” (Genesis 3:6).

Eve “saw that the tree was good for food”: here we have lust of the flesh. Eve is surely right that the tree was good for food, but even a good bodily pleasure can become sinful outside of its proper context. Although the fruit was good in and of itself, it was prohibited by God. So eating this good fruit was not good for Eve.

Eve then saw “that it was a delight to the eyes”: here we have the lust of the eyes. Eve didn’t need to eat this fruit (she could freely eat from all the other trees, as is clear from Genesis 2:16) and it wasn’t hers to eat (which God explains in Genesis 2:17). It’s unfortunate how often the desire for something we don’t need is coupled with the desire for something that belongs to someone else.

And lastly Eve saw “that the tree was to be desired to make one wise”: here we have the pride of life. At first glance this doesn’t seem like pride because there’s nothing wrong with Eve’s desire for wisdom. We should all seek true wisdom. The problem is that “the Lord gives wisdom” (Proverbs 2:6) and Eve was seeking wisdom without Him. In fact, Eve was grasping wisdom in a manner expressly against His will.

Eve’s desire was stoked by the Devil’s take on the tree: “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). The Devil insinuates that since eating of the tree makes one like God, and God doesn’t want Eve to eat from the tree, God must not want Eve to be like Him. Since God wants us to be just like Him, this is an impressive maneuver. But we can’t be like God without God. As the Catechism notes, “Seduced by the devil, [Adam] wanted to ‘be like God,’ but ‘without God, before God, and not in accordance with God’” (CCC 398, quoting St. Maximus the Confessor). We can only become God-like by doing God’s will, by bringing our wills in line with His.

Lenten Practices to Combat Sin

The three traditional Lenten practices are intended to help us do just that: align our wills with God’s by combating the three categories of sin St. John identified. Let’s look at each in turn more formally and the Church’s proposed remedies.

Lust of the flesh refers to a desire for: a) disordered bodily pleasure (e.g., lust);

b) bodily pleasure outside its proper context (e.g., sex outside of marriage). For this the Church recommends fasting, which restrains our good, normal bodily desires so we are better able to: a) overcome temptation towards any disordered bodily desires; b) seek bodily pleasure only in its natural or appropriate context. Fasting encourages self-mastery, so that when we know God’s will, physical desires will aid us in pursuing it, rather than obstructing us.

Lust of the eyes refers to excess desire for things of this world that a) we need; b) we don’t need or that don’t belong to us. For this sin the Church proposes giving alms, wherein we part with some material goods so that we become less attached to: a) material things (including the material things we genuinely need); b) intangibles that material goods obtain for us (e.g., power, prestige, etc.). By freeing ourselves from some of the goods of this world, we’re freer to pursue God’s will.

Lastly, pride of life refers to: a) excessive self-love; b) the desire to be God or to be like God all on our own, without God. Some scholars even define it specifically as the desire to determine what’s good and evil for ourselves—a vice particularly embraced by the modern era, which has been busy redefining both. For pride of life the Church proposes prayer as a remedy. By conversing with God (which includes both talking and, more importantly, listening), we: a) immerse ourselves in His transforming love so as to become more like Him; b) learn more of His will, which makes it possible to live more fully in accord with it.

Our Particular Practices

Now that we’ve covered why the Church proposes the practices of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer, we can better design them to bring about change that survives the season of Lent.

We usually think of fasting as giving up some kind of food, but it need not be. In fact, since the Church requires food fasts via abstaining from meat on Fridays and meal fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, we will still partake in bodily fasts even if we choose an alternate fasting penance for Lent. I recommend fasting from a vice that you have a reasonable hope of conquering in 40 days, so you’re more inclined to keep up that habit of holiness beyond Lent. For instance, St. John Chrysostom encouraged his flock to fast from gossip and slander: “For what doth it profit if we abstain from birds and fishes; and yet bite and devour our brethren?”²

One Lent I fasted from impatience by following all the rules of the road, which in my case meant coming to complete stops at stop signs and obeying the speed limit. In addition to growing my patience, it grew my humility because the city drivers behind me often weren’t pleased. As you can guess, this is a practice I continued, and it has had the unexpected side benefit of challenging some of the relativism of my upbringing (after all, why had I decided that 5 miles over the speed limit was ok but not 10?). Through this fast, the Lord helped me see I was choosing my own will over his desire that I follow all just human laws.³ More generally, fasting usually increases our humility because we often fail despite our best intentions, and it will increase our charity if we can direct it toward love of God (and neighbor, where applicable). Whatever you choose as a fast, don’t forget to offer it up.

Likewise, almsgiving is usually thought of in terms of money, and in our materialistic society, we’re usually more attached to money (or our stuff) than we think. Traditionally, money saved by fasting went toward almsgiving, and this could be practiced by forgoing a weekly meal or coffee out. Or we could give bigger chunks out of our savings and let it hurt a bit more. Almsgiving is unlike the other two practices in that it directly benefits another materially, so it’s worthwhile even if we only give during Lent. Even so, it’s helpful to think about ways in which almsgiving might be sustained beyond the season. When I moved to Denver, I started giving gift cards to the (far too prevalent) homeless during Lent. This is a practice I’ve continued year-round—but now I bump up the dollar amount during Lent.

While distributing gift cards I have often thought of the quote attributed to Mother Teresa, “Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.” As a born and bred New Yorker, smiling at strangers is a skill I’ve acquired over much time and disinclination; and yet, in some encounters it has been obvious the person appreciated the smile and brief conversation more than the gift card. It’s a good reminder that almsgiving need not be purely monetary. It could also look like visiting an older relative who doesn’t get out much, volunteering at the local food pantry, offering friends free babysitting so they could have a date night—with an eye to activities you could continue after Lent (even if with less frequency). Almsgiving grows both our humility and charity, since recognizing another’s need implicitly recalls our own, and seeing Christ in them evokes our love.

Lastly, prayer is perhaps the most important Lenten practice since it directly affects your relationship with the Lord. For anyone who doesn’t have a daily prayer practice, this is the thing to establish during Lent and continue afterward. For beginners, an easy routine is 5 minutes of reading Scripture, 5 minutes of sharing your thoughts with the Lord about the passage, and 5 minutes of silence and listening. (Note that at the beginning, the latter will usually be more like 4.5 minutes of combatting distractions and 10 periods of 3-second silences. Nearly all of us have atrophied silence muscles, so it takes practice.)

For those of us who are already faithful to daily prayer, it can be challenging to think of things we could continue after Lent that aren’t simply adding more time to one’s regular prayer schedule. During one Lent I began making flashcards for Scripture I wanted to know by heart. I was already reading the Bible, but memorizing several Scripture passages during my prayer time was beneficial long after Lent was over. Similarly, throughout your day you might add aspirations (“Jesus, I love you,” “Jesus, I trust in you,” “Make my heart like yours,” “Not my will, but yours, be done,” etc.), which add practically no time, can be adjusted to your given situation/mood, and are very easy to continue beyond Lent. For those comfortable with adding a bit more time permanently, starting a 3–5 minute examen at night can be a small but impactful practice that is short enough to be easily continued beyond Lent. Or you could go bigger with daily Mass for Lent and then keep it going scaled down to one daily Mass a week in Easter. (Though, since Mass is the single best thing we can do to glorify God,⁴ it too is worthwhile even if only attended daily during Lent.) Prayer grows our humility when we stop to ponder that the Lord of the universe makes himself available to us, day and night, because he wants to be in relationship with us that much. And the more we recognize and feel his love, the more our own charity grows. Faithfulness to regular prayer grows both virtues: the former especially on days when we fail to keep our commitment, and the latter especially on days when it’s hard or we don’t want to but we pray anyway.

Virtue that Lasts

There’s nothing special about the examples I’ve mentioned—they’re merely ideas to help you start brainstorming. Sociologists say we overestimate what we can attain in the short term and underestimate what we can attain in the long-term. So this Lent, whatever you discern, I hope you’ll choose one practice you can continue beyond Lent. If we do this each year, in a decade we’ll all be holier humans—and the Church in America will be better for it.

Denise Fath is editor of What We Need Now. She has a Masters in Theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville and has previously worked in the publishing departments of the Augustine Institute and Lighthouse Catholic Media.

1. See, for instance, St. Augustine’s Sermons 205 and 206, On the Beginning of Lent.

2. St. John Chrysostom, Homilies Concerning the Statues, Homily 3.

3. See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I–II, q. 96, a. 4.

4. “All the honor that angels by their adorations, and men by their good works, austerities, and even martyrdoms, have ever rendered or will ever render to God, never could, and never will, give him so much glory as one single Mass” -St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Discourses on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and on the Divine Office, Chapter 1.