The Logic of Lent: A Divine Invitation to True Freedom

                

               Is it strange to say that Lent is probably my favorite liturgical season of the year? Does liking Lent, with its distinctive penitential character, show that I have some sort of complex or make me a glutton for punishment? I certainly hope not, and I hope that I can give some good evidence to the contrary as to why I like to sink into the Lenten season.

                As the title of this post suggests, I think the primary attraction of the Lenten season is God’s invitation to us to be truly free. In a modern construal of freedom, where freedom is understood fundamentally as the choice to do whatever I want whenever I want, it seems contradictory to suggest that Lent makes us freer. If the Church requires her members to fast and abstain on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, to abstain from meat on Fridays, and to pray, fast and give alms more intensely and frequently, then my freedom to do whatever I want is certainly hindered.

                When freedom is understood in the biblical and classical sense as the freedom for excellence, then the logic of Lent becomes apparent. Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, was the freest person who ever lived because His entire being was oriented toward doing the Father’s will, and that is who the Son is from all eternity. As God made man, the stain of sin, that ultimate and primordial enslavement, could not touch Jesus in any way, yet as man He “has been tested as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus’ earthly ministry, culminating in His Passion and Death on the cross, is the progressive revelation of His perfect “Yes” to the Father. As He moves toward the cross, Jesus expresses His true freedom when He says that “I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father” (John 10:17-18).

                Only one who is truly free, whose freedom is perfectly conformed to the Good, can lay down one’s life willingly. As I reflect on Jesus’ perfect freedom, who is the ultimate exemplar of human freedom, I become painfully aware that I am not perfectly and totally free. I like to think that I am free, but even on my “best” days I can confess with St. Paul that “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Romans 7:19). St. Paul goes on and humbly recognizes his own inability to save himself and cries out: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25).

                I am excited for Lent because it is a privileged opportunity to receive the Lord’s saving power and be set free from everything that keeps me from loving Him with my whole mind, heart, soul and strength and from loving my neighbor as myself (cf. Mark 12:29-31). I must continuously remind myself that the good practices associated with Lent, i.e. prayer, fasting and almsgiving, are not ways for me to spiritually pull myself up by my bootstraps. Rather, engaging in these practices by receiving them as a gift is a real way of participating in Jesus’ perfect freedom. Lent, by its very nature, is not oriented toward self-improvement for its own sake but is an ecclesial and personal renewal, received through Christ’s own self-gift, for God’s glory and the good of the whole world. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “it is necessary, then, to appeal to the spiritual and moral capacities of the human person and to the permanent need for his inner conversion, so as to obtain social changes that will really serve him. The acknowledged priority of the conversion of heart in no way eliminates but, on the contrary, imposes the obligation of bringing the appropriate remedies to institutions and living conditions when they are an inducement to sin, so that they conform to the norms of justice and advance the good rather than hinder it” (1888).

                This Lent, please pray for me as I pray for you, that we may be set free from everything that keeps us from being saints. May our freedom be pruned to seek and will the true Good for the glory of God and the salvation of the world.