REVISITING LENTEN SACRIFICE
Christ in the wilderness, 1898, by Briton Riviere. Public domain.
I was raised Catholic, went to church every Sunday and Vacation Bible School each year, and didn’t fit in. I was frequently the only child of color in those very White spaces, and I felt more watched than welcomed at church. “Faith,” to me, meant discomfort, obligation, and shame for most of my early life.
My experiences as the single “other” granted me a unique perspective in a community of people taught to recite the same prayers in unison, to defer to the authority of the Church on everything from yoga to birth control, and to profess the same beliefs: theological, social, and political. From an early age, I took issue with the messages the Church sent to women and girls, about our diminished capacities to lead, about our bodies, and about our purposes, theological, social, and political. By the time I was a young teenager, I was a full-fledged feminist reading Alice Walker and Betty Friedan, and I brought feminist/womanist perspectives to church with me.
Lent, a season of contemplation in Christianity, evoked not reverence but resentment in me. In the Catholic Church, Lent is a period of greater obligation, demanding more time in a context that made me feel deeply uncomfortable. Lent felt like another burden I didn’t choose. Giving up dessert or Gilmore Girls made me feel emptier. “Giving something up” felt like another rule which led to more guilt, not closeness to God.
Today, I am no longer a member of the Catholic Church. Away from those tendrils of patriarchy and homogeneity, I see sacrifice during Lent differently - not as an obligation, but an invitation.
The Roots of Lent
Lent is the most sacred season in the Christian liturgical year, which begins with Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting and religious observance. Church leaders spread ashes of burned, consecrated palms on our foreheads, as they say, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We remember our limits – human finitude, human contingency – and belonging through practices of repentance, forgiveness, and grace. It is a solemn, contemplative day that begins 40 days of “fasting” leading to Easter.
Lent is derived from the Old English word Lencten, meaning “springtime” and related to the “lengthening of days.” (1) Lent is called, in Latin, Quadragesima, literally translated as ‘fortieth.’ The number ‘40’ is significant as it appears frequently to describe holy times in the Bible, from Genesis through the New Testament. (2) Lent is commonly described as a commemoration of Jesus’ 40-day fast in the desert, when he was tempted by the devil and sustained by the Holy Spirit. While it is impossible to give up food and water for 40 days, today, Christians commonly “give something up” to honor Jesus’ fast. By denying themselves something they enjoy, and also perhaps meat on Fridays, they connect to Jesus’ self-denial and sacrifice.
Medieval Lenten practices were stricter and more severe than they are today. Christians observed “black fasts,” eating only one meal on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday; only ate after 3:00 PM on all other Lenten days; and abstained from animal meat and fat, eggs, and dairy products. (3) Lent was a period of true penitence, self-denial, regimentation, and austerity.
Contemporary Discourse
Many contemporary Christians push back against the idea of “giving something up” and instead suggest that we “take something on.” Rather than seeing Lent as a period of denial and deprivation, they suggest we view Lent as an invitation to commit to positive actions, like volunteering, donating money, or practicing deeper contemplation. (4) Proponents of this view point out that by virtue of committing to something new, we also give something else up. We sacrifice our time and commit it to service or to God.
Richard Rohr questions the modern emphasis on sacrificing small things, like social media or ice cream, and pushes back on the discourse around striving during Lent. Rohr writes, “We do need an emotional charge to make most decisions, adopt specific behaviors, ‘give up candy for Lent,’ or make some changes in our life. But Jesus is not talking about changes. He is talking about change! Many changes might well be good and even needed, and surely some changes will result from any shaking of the foundations, but they are not what we mean by Biblical conversion or transformation (‘changing the form itself’).” (5) Rohr asks instead that we “surrender” during Lent:
“Such deep allowing is the most humiliating, sacrificial, and daily kind of trying! Pep talks seldom get you there, but the suffering of life and love itself will always get you there. Lent is just magnified and intensified life.” (6) This raises the following question, though: how do we cultivate the structure during Lent which makes this kind of transformation possible?
Others suggest that Lent has become too “secularized,” too “palatable” for a society of an increasing number of “religious nones.” Tara Isabella Burton writes for Vox, “Our culturally conflicted way of looking at Lent — plenty of Christians don’t observe it, but plenty of secular people do — says a lot about how we conceive of sacrifice and self-denial. Its spiritual aspects (we should give up sweets to focus on God) are more difficult to contend with than its practical aspects (we should give up sweets to lose weight). Lent, fundamentally, is about facing the hardest elements of human existence — suffering, mortality, death. That the season has turned into giving up Twitter shows that we haven’t gotten good at talking about them yet.” (7) Burton argues that Lent should be a difficult period and that the dogma of Lent is vital to its meaning. “Taking something on for Lent” doesn’t evoke the necessary hardship Burton outlines. The Easter cycle, true to life, is a gritty one. In this sacred time, we should confront what we often ignore.
Paying Attention
Considering the arguments Burton and Rohr present, should we give something up for Lent? Synthesizing these two rich conversations, I think giving something up - even something small - can lay the foundation for the total transformation Rohr describes, if we approach Lenten sacrifice with an understanding of its sacred roots, the relevance of its dogma, and a contemplative stance.
Giving something up can remind us that our spiritual longings can sometimes be misplaced. When we go on “autopilot” and watch too much TV, or we reach for food for comfort, or we buy things we don’t need, we may very well be attempting to fill a hole which only God can fill, to distract ourselves from our own sadness and weariness, or to numb the deep grief we feel about climate change, social injustice, and human suffering. For centuries, Christians have used fasting as a tool to turn attention away from worldly goods toward God and Truth. By letting something go, we practice loosening our grip on our own concerns to make space for greater, deeper concerns.
I now see the season of Lent as a season of refining, of preparation, of simplicity, and of humility. These practices and qualities are virtuous, and limited in today’s culture. Away from the snide remarks from proud religious people comparing what they gave up, and away from the glare of superficial social media “Lent lite,” Lent is a rich season of contemplation, and self-denial is an essential piece of making contemplation possible. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should - that is a good lesson, one which prepares us for the majesty, catharsis, and renewal of the Easter season.
“Lent,” Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/word/lent
Nicholas V. Russo, “The Early History of Lent,” The Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, 23.
Society of Saint Pius X, “Think Lent is Tough? Take a Look at Medieval Lenten Practices”: https://sspx.org/en/news-events/news/think-lent-tough-take-look-medieval-lenten-practices.
Brandon Anderson, “This Lent, Give Something Up By Taking Something On”: https://medium.com/@wheatonbrando/this-lent-give-something-up-by-taking-something-on-33ebc2bf66f9
Richard Rohr, “Lent Is About Transformation”: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lent-is-about-transformation_b_1282070
Ibid.
Tara Isabella Burton, “Why ‘Secular Lent’ Misses the Point”: https://www.vox.com/2018/2/14/17007284/why-secular-lent-misses-the-point-christian-ash-wednesday
