A Lenten Program For Life
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“How I hate all the barbarians who imagine that they are wise because they no longer have a heart!”
Lenten asceticism for the Roman Catholic is akin to New Year’s resolutions for the herd.
Folk will abandon yearlong addictions, cut out slothful and expect a regime of sudden constant prayer to allow them to coast through the six weeks of Lent with monastic ease. When they get a week in and find themselves gagging for the thing they abandoned the instinct is to relapse at first a little and then a lot and then just try and get to Good Friday as respectfully as possible without embarrassing themselves, or by extension, the Church.
Lent should not be a time of “at least trying” to be more like Christ; it is a mirror of the time Christ spent in the wilderness, 40 days and 40 nights testing his limits and coming face to face with Satan in a battle of wills that initiated his ministry.
Cutting out chocolate or sweets for a few weeks hardly compares to Our Lord’s example.
Instead it would be better to compare ourselves to the ascetics of the early Church and the certainty with which they faced martyrdom; for the early Roman Christians who lived within the Empire, the faith was illegal, the idea of dying for (and with) Christ was not a far off threat, but a daily reality.
Our spiritual warfare is no different to theirs and in this current climate, saying the wrong thing, believing the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing etc. can land you in jail, or your livelihood snatched away. We are a hairs breadth in the Western world from the apostasy which will end with Bishops and priests hanged in the streets. We should remember that with every waking prayer for the Persecuted Church in the Middle East, those who live with these realities daily: beatings, rape, extortion, humiliation and martyrdom.
Cutting out chocolate or sweets for a few weeks hardly compares to our brother’s and sister’s example.
If we were to behave like the saints and soldiers of the Church throughout the ages we wouldn’t be binging on sugar and intoxicants and addictive substances for any physical or moral reason. Thomistic logic demands that we approach every decision with the forethought of creating the Kingdom of God upon the earth. Where do piles of sweet wrappers, empty beer bottles, cigarette butts, and the day to day whoredom of the media fit into this spiritual combat?
The truth should be obvious to us.
Alcohol slows a good man down for days; if he is on a logical training regimen the presence of alcohol in his bloodstream (even if used as a lubricant for better fighting spirit) will slow his wits and dull his physical ability for at least 2-3 days and anecdotally for even longer. None of us should be accepting the presence of a substance in our lives which enforces a break in our physical training program.
Tobacco and other intoxicants which have an addictive or sedative affect will slow a man down for a measurable (and demonstrable) period of time and cause him to become sluggish (with or) without that substance.
Abstinence from sexual sin is a prerequisite for any Roman Catholic without the discussion of Lenten disciplines, but we must address the issue nonetheless. Pornography has a negative effect on testosterone production long term (even if the immediate stimulus causes a spike) and we all know the physical and moral effects of consuming pornography currently being explored throughout the “masculine movement”. All of this is clear even without approaching the religious dimension of watching or using pornography.
Habitual use of television, internet, social media, streaming services, gaming etc. all dull the senses and cause a slump in testosterone. Any dopamine heavy activity used consistently without thought for time constraints or negative effects will eventually become addictive.
It may be enough for us to look at these issues and say “OK for Lent I’m going to abstain from sex, stop drinking, stop binging on sugary carbs, start going running, cut out smoking and not watch TV”. Any moron will tell you this will not work for a 6 week period and within 3 days you’ll probably have elastically rebounded and find yourself slumped on the sofa with a beer in one hand, cock in the other, a fag hanging out of your mouth, contemplating the last slice of a large pizza whilst some whore gyrates on the flat screen at 2am.
Interestingly the solution might be to add things to your daily life rather than abstain from them and to produce a healthy list of alternatives and adaptations rather than try to act like a Benedictine monk for 40 days.
With the Grail Quest manual we made sure we didn’t say to people “cut this out, abandon this, sever from this” etc. and instead chose to encourage additions not subtractions.
For the man seeking to push himself towards a greater usefulness in the combat it would be better to add a run or add a dietary consideration rather than to binge eat on Shrove Tuesday, fast all of Ash Wednesday and then plough towards Good Friday in 6 weeks with the mentality of a flagellant ascetic.
If we were to recommend things over Lent that will genuinely bring you closer to God and closer to the way which leads to holiness it will always be:
Confession
Mass
Rosary
From this launch pad of grace and genuine consideration for what God and the Virgin want you to achieve with your life we can then recommend cutting out alcohol, tobacco, gluttony, and criminal sloth from your day to day life. But without the necessary additions of grace and hope and peace you will inevitably fall and fail.
Cutting out chocolate or sweets for a few weeks hardly compares to Our Lord’s example.
