bits and bants vol.26

and it's lent again

I could have sworn lent started a month ago around here but in actuality it was just this past Wednesday. And that’s ok. It’s ok to have lent even when life is hard! I don’t know if anyone has mentioned that to you yet this lent because as sure as the ash-selfies there is the typical barrage “don’t be so hard on yourself!” lenten posts.

As someone who has been a practicing Catholic for approximately a million years I have to say that I just cannot anymore with the “just give yourself a hug instead of giving something up” lent advice. My reaction to those waterfalls of posts is a full Logan Roy response of “You are not serious people.”

This is not to say that the love of God should not be appreciated every single day in Lent. Or that you are not supposed to recognize the small, personal, graces that God in His love for you shows us every single day, even in Lent. Nor does it mean that the horrors of scrupulosity are not intense, real, attacks that should be combatted and acknowledged in our inner lives.

But the Church in her wisdom of the centuries gives us Lent not so that we somehow make our lives really difficult, but that we take this time set apart to recognize in ourselves our own sin, our need for repentance, our need for a Saviour, and our need to make reparation for our sins. It is a time set apart for this introspection and understanding because we have the all too human tendency to rationalize away our sins. To tell ourselves our lives are already really hard, why should we think too much about annoying sins? And to continue in our very self-centred ways of thinking that trap us in the temporal instead of the eternal.

I think our lives are hard already. I think we all have various crosses that at different times feel much more painful than others. We all have seasons of intense darkness, spiritual dryness, and deep melancholy. We also have lives that are very busy with many burdens we haven’t chosen but still are obligated to fulfill. Our lives are not dissimilar to the lives of regular Catholic laypeople throughout time and history. I think the Catholic peasants in plague-ridden 14th century France probably didn’t need to take on an extra penance during Lent. But the Church did not say Lent wasn’t going to happen that year.

Lent is not given to us by the Church and observed in order that we just add something hard to do to our lives as some kind of morbid observance that today’s self care culture is allergic to, it is a time set apart each year so that no matter what our current life circumstances look like we take time to acknowledge that our lives here on earth are temporary, entirely dependent on God, and that our sin means something. Lent focuses our attention not in order to add hard things in some kind of competition or self-help program, but in a way that helps us see that the hard things in life are not meaningless distractions or bumps in the road, but the very way we can become closer to God and heaven.

I don’t want to be told that Lent in its difficulty can be imagined away or rebranded as a time for more self reflection to just give yourself more of break because things are tough. I want to be told that Lent is difficult, but that my sacrifices are meaningful especially when offered in reparation for my sins and the sins of others. It doesn’t necessarily mean that elaborate hardships need to be added to my life, but it does mean that I actually need to acknowledge my hardships, to be painfully present to them, and actually pray about the hard things and prayerfully offer them to God.

So to recap: yes, your life right now is hard but you still need Lent as a time to focus on more prayer, more fasting, more alms-giving in acknowledgement that you’ve sinned and that matters. Of course you’re going to fail at these things, everyone does it’s not a reason to quit or believe that Lent doesn’t matter. You can do hard things, God loves you and wants you to become closer to Him during this holy season.

Good chat.

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bits:

• If loving Dr.

  Nadya Williams
  is wrong, I don’t want to be right. She just simultaneously cheers me by calling a spade a spade, and always having such wise words about challenging problems.

• A lenten reflection I appreciated! So take all my Debbie Downer-ing with a grain of salt!

• So many good points on why understanding things that last are important in combatting the weird and wacky fads of the day.

• And if you’ve made it this far into my newsletter you know I need to read this lovely piece on gratitude in an imperfect world.

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reading, watching, what have you:

• watching nothing new because most of my watching time has been with the invalid daughter who only wants to watch English period dramas and the occasional Korean rom-com. And then I collapse into bed at night exhausted as soon as possible and not staying up to watch anything I want while knowing there are still(!!) teenagers awake in my house.

• Finished some Hans Urs Von Balthasar this week so I’m feeling extremely smug and smart. Actually, this short work of his is so approachable and completely timeless because he wrote it 40 years ago and all the problems facing laypeople in the Church are just much worse!

• I finished re-reading True Grit this week for book club, this time on audiobook with the amazing Donna Tartt narration, and it still is a completely fantastic book. A masterclass in the genre and a perfect example of why you should read outside your usual genre. *Expand your mind, man! - said in that hippie from The Simpsons voice. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Just ignore.*

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And I would love for you to come to Ireland with

Katie Marquette

and I this coming October! It’s going to be an amazing experience of the culture, faith, and beauty of Ireland.

From February 14-21 Select is running an amazing deal of $300 dollars off your combined trip when you sign up with another person. It could be your best friend, your mom, your daughter, even your husband!

To hear more about the trip, here’s a fun video we did this week!

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I’m off for the weekend to try and recharge some very depleted batteries. My recharging needs a lot these days: a haircut, a dinner out with friends, some alone time, and a massage. I feel like a veritable diva, but I also think that since having a baby this is probably the most stressful period of time I’ve been through, so we’ve got to throw everything at this! Hope you have a weekend of calm, rest, and natural light. (If you think I rant about lent, you should hear my rant about natural light and fresh air! Isn’t it crazy how I’m not more popular on the internet??)

• Christy