My 11 year old’s challenges with Lent… and what about Sunday?

Q: Dear Father John, my question is on behalf of my 11-year-old son, Matthew. Matthew decided to give up sweets for Lent. he did this completely on his own and just announced it on Ash Wednesday. (I am giving up my favorite indulgence, chocolate). At two weeks into Lent my poor little Matthew is in misery about wishing to have a dessert. I have coached him from different angles — “Look what a strong person you are becoming” or “Why don’t you choose a different sacrifice? You know you can change your sacrifice…” or “When you really want that sweet and you feel angry or desperate, think of Christ’s suffering for each one of us and relate his feelings to your own.” Do you have any advice for us? Matthew says that he’s doomed either way: if he continues to sacrifice desserts he will be miserable and if he changes his sacrifice he will be disappointed and ashamed that he could not keep up his sacrifice.

By the way, another thing we a re doing for Lent is to read daily Mass readings first thing every morning before doing anything else. Matthew is really enjoying this! We are also planning to visit a nursing home and share our musical talents there.

Also, I have heard many people talk about Sundays being a feast day and that you may celebrate by indulging in whatever your Lenten sacrifice is. What are your thoughts on that?

A: It gave me a thrill to read your question. You and Matthew and your family are carrying the torch of our faith high and making it shine bright. How pleased our Lord must be with your efforts to live this season with fervor and meaning! You are living proof of what Pope Benedict XVI said in his inaugural homily: “The Church is young!”

Sundays Are Different

OK, down to business. Sundays in Lent are still Sundays, and every Sunday is a Solemnity, the most illustrious liturgical feast the Church can have. Sundays are Victory Days, the day of Christ’s victory (Resurrection) over death, sin, and evil. As his brothers and sisters, we are called to share in the victory and to celebrate it. That’s why Sundays need to be different in our lives (and a lot of benefits come with it when we actually make them different). So, yes, during Lent, it is a long-standing and meaningful practice to exempt ourselves from our Lenten sacrifices on Sundays. But that doesn’t mean we should over-indulge! We should enjoy the simple pleasures of life (like sweets) as an act of homage to God, an act of faith in his goodness and promise of salvation. Give yourself a whiff of heaven! Exempting Sundays from our sacrifices (for the right reason) actually helps keep our motivations healthy and supernatural during the rest of the week.

Getting Practical

Your way of reminding Matthew of the reason behind his sacrifice is right on target. You and he (and all of us) must keep fresh the reason why we choose to give something up for Lent: because it will help remind us that earth is not heaven, and that we tend to be self-centered and self-indulgent (that’s why we whine when we don’t get our sweets). And it is precisely that tendency that hinders us from following Christ more closely and learning to love like him.

When a football player starts his pre-season practices, it’s really tough. He has to get up early, push his body hard, endure pain, sweat, and a rigorous schedule. Why would he do all of that? Because he wants to be the best football player he can be. And the fat and laziness that he has acquired during the off-season has to be purified for that to happen. It’s painful, but it has a purpose.

Our Lenten sacrifices are painful (that’s why they are called sacrifices), but they have a purpose: to get rid of the spiritual fat and laziness that inhibits us from loving as purely and energetically as Christ. St Paul put it well: “I do all this for the sake of the Gospel, that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever” (1 Corinthians 9:24-25). And also: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” So, keep reminding Matthew of that!

Three other practical things may help him. If you and/or your husband will take on his sacrifice too, abstaining from dessert along with him, it will help him. It will also help him if he learns about the sacrifices of the saints. Do you ever read excerpts from the lives of the saints? If he likes the daily Mass readings, he may like these too. They remind us that we are part of a bigger story. And seeing how much our older brothers and sisters in the Church suffered out of love for Christ stirs and strengthens our hearts. Unfortunately, not all the versions of the lives of the saints are helpful in this regard. I recommend that you look at the “Emails from Uncle Eddy” at Catholic.net. I wrote them for college students, but I think Matthew may like them. Finally, try to teach Matthew what it means to offer up his sufferings and sacrifices. You can read more about that at this post.

And tell him that I will pray for him tonight during my adoration, and that in order to support him in his efforts to follow Christ more closely, I am going to add his sacrifice to my sacrifices for the rest of Lent: no more sweet desserts for this priest (till Sunday, that is)!

Yours in Christ, Fr. John Bartunek, LC

A Question about the Litany of Humility in Lent – How can I be freed from the desire of being loved?

Q: Dear Father John, I am trying to pray the Litany of Humility with special reverence and attentiveness during this Lent, and in doing so the following question keeps recurring to me: In the Litany of Humility, the second request is: “From the desire of being loved, Lord Jesus, free me!” How am I to understand this request? I had thought that to want to love and to be loved is a part of our human nature. What am I missing?

A: It has been argued (quite successfully, in my opinion) that Christ’s greatest virtue during his earthly sojourn was humility. That you have felt nudged to pray the Litany of Humility as a Lenten devotion, then, seems a sure sign that you are listening to the Holy Spirit. It is edifying and encouraging to hear about it!

Your dilemma is a good one. True, the deepest needs of our human nature, as designed by God, are to be loved and to love. This is because we are created in God’s image, and God is love, the infinite love of the relationship between the three divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Insofar as we reflect that divine Trinitarian relation of love within the limitations of our human nature, we live out our vocation as God’s children and we discover and enjoy the fulfillment we long for at the very bottom of our souls.

Looking for Love in a Fallen World

But remember, our current condition includes both a fallen human nature and a fallen world. As a result, these deep needs of our human heart have a tendency to express themselves in distorted ways.

Think about a secular family in which the parents are trying to re-live their own youth vicariously through their children. They pressure their kids to excel at sports, the arts, academics, and everything else. And as the children grow up, they either rebel against this self-centered mode of parenting in some destructive way, or they fall into the over-achiever trap, thinking that achievements are a condition of love. In the latter case, they unconsciously form a habit of the heart in which their need to be loved is almost inextricably intertwined with a need to achieve. If they don’t get straight A’s, if they don’t get into a top college, if they don’t win this or that award, then they will let their parents down and therefore not be loved. As a result, they live in constant tension, deathly afraid of failure, because failure will disqualify them from being loved. This is an unhealthy spiritual state.

Or think about a girl who grows up in a broken home. Mom raises her all alone, because dad abandoned the family early on. She reaches adolescence with a void in her heart, because she hasn’t grown up with the love of a faithful father. She starts dating early, and unconsciously tries to fill that void by winning the love of a boy, a boy who, naturally, is immature and full of adolescent lust. What happens? Her frustrated thirst to be loved leads her to give herself to someone who is not worthy, and only magnifies her emotional instability, maybe even leading to unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and a whole Pandora’s box of painful complications.

The Key Concept

We could multiply examples, but the core concept is very simple: it is possible, unfortunately, to aim our natural desire to be loved in the wrong direction. The unconditional love we are created to yearn for should be sought in only one place – God. St Augustine put it beautifully in a phrase quoted early on in the Catechism:

You [O Lord] have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you.

If we seek to fill our need for love from any other source, we will end up frustrated and confused at best, and wounded and lost at worst.

We should serve others and do good to others and encourage others, not in order to win their love and worship, but because they are our brothers and sisters in Christ and therefore deserve our love. We should strive to develop our talents and utilize them to make a positive impact in the world not in order to win love, esteem, and praise from others, but because we are God’s children and this is what he has created us to do.

The alarming, effervescent, energizing, and contagious freedom of the saints flows from their having learned this lesson. They no longer gauge their actions or decisions by what other people will think of them. And so they don’t live in fear, instability, and hesitancy. Rather, they have discovered that God’s love for them is as firm as the mountains (as the Psalms tell us). They don’t need to earn it; they just humbly accept it. And once they do, it propels them to echo and reflect it spontaneously and joyfully, regardless of the consequences.

When you pray that line of the Litany of the Humility, as the context of the rest of the Litany helps make clear, you are praying for that same grace: “From the desire of being loved by others, from the thirst of winning the approval of others, from the slavery of depending on the praise and recognition of others, Lord Jesus, free me! Instead, Lord, grant me the grace to fill my infinite need for love at the only infinite fountain that exists: your Sacred Heart.”

Yours in Christ, Fr John Bartunek, LC, STL

St. John of the Cross – Principles for Detachment

These are the golden rules proposed by St. John of the Cross for total detachment: The soul must always be inclined ‘not to the easiest thing, but to the hardest; not to the tastiest, but to the most insipid; not to the things that give the greatest pleasure, but to those that give the least; not to the restful things, but to the painful ones; not to consolation, but to desolation; not to more, but to less; not to the highest and dearest, but to the lowest and most despised; not to the desire for something, but to having no desires.’ In this way, we shall gradually become accustomed to subduing this inordinate desire for pleasure, which is at the base of all attachments. It is like going against a current; hence it is a hard tiring task which can be accomplished only by strength of will. We must oppose the inclinations of nature and make ourselves do what is repugnant to nature. This is, however, a sweet task for a soul in love with God; it knows that everything it refuses to self is given to God and that, when it has reached the point of renouncing self in everything – of selling everything – God Himself will give it the precious pearl of divine union.

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C. D.

A Lenten Prayer of St. John Eudes

“O Lord, You have created me for Yourself, to love You and to enjoy You, infinite Good, ineffable Beauty; do not permit me to lose sight of this sublime end toward which I must tend; do not permit me to wander among the wretched satisfactions that vain, feeble creatures can offer me.

“O my Lord, what poor use I have made of creatures! Pardon me, O Lord! Henceforth I do not want to use anything unless it is for Your glory and according to Your holy will, as Your Son Jesus did. O my God, if in the past I have turned aside from You who are my Beginning, my End, and my supreme good; if I have turned toward myself and creatures, preferring their will and mine to Yours, I here and now promise to renounce, entirely and forever the world and myself, and to give myself wholly and forever to You. O my God, I give myself to You as my Beginning; take complete possession of me. May I always abide in You! Be the beginning and end of all my actions. O my God, I give myself to You as my End, my Center, my supreme Good. Draw me to You! Make me tend continually toward You. Be my delight, my glory, my treasure, my all!”

Saint John Eudes

How to Stay Strong Spiritually During Lent

Q: Every year I start out Lent with great ambition and hope for spiritual growth, but somewhere along the way I lose interest and let myself slide. I really want to avoid the slide this year … any suggestions to help me stay strong?

A: Sure! The key thing to think about is why you tend to slide. If you can identify the cause, then you can easily find the solution. In general, three things tend to make our Lenten resolutions less transforming than we would like them to be.

Start Small

First, they can be unrealistic. Some of us have the tendency to bite off more than we can chew. It’s like the former jock who hasn’t worked out for two years. She decides to get back in shape. But then she sets herself an Olympic-style workout program. She does it for two days, but it’s way too demanding, so she drops it.

What she should have done is start small – a 15-minute walk and some stretching every other day for two weeks, for example – then build back up to where she would like to be. In our spiritual lives we can make the same mistake.

We forget that climbing the mountain of holiness is a journey of small steps. And after trying to take a bunch of big steps (and falling down every time), we simply give up.

Root Sin

Second, our Lenten resolutions can be off target. This is an endemic problem for us post-modern Catholics. We see the fruits of spiritual immaturity in our lives (impatience, unchastity, loose tongue, judgmentalism…), and we start hacking away at them, like cutting back the branches of a tree. But all the while, we leave the roots unbothered. When that happens, the branches just grow right back, or flourish even more!

If we really want to make progress, we have to do our part to get to the root of our selfish tendencies. Do you know what your root sin is (we all have one)? Do you know its most salient manifestations? If so, then you will be able to choose a Lenten resolution that will help you aim your efforts effectively, and this will give you momentum and strength to persevere.

If you don’t, I would recommend that you make a Lenten resolution to take up 15 minutes of spiritual reading each day, and read some solid, truly instructional books that will help you get to know yourself (like Spiritual Progress by Fr. Thomas Williams, or This Tremendous Lover by M. Eugene Boylan). Or, sign up for an authentic spiritual exercises retreat.

Additionally, you may want to look for someone who can be a kind of spiritual mentor for you, or spiritual director. They can help you aim better. You can also find some information about what spiritual writers call a “program of life” here. (If you have some extra time, you may want to listen to this radio broadcast, where I talk a bit about holiness and root sins.)

Season of Grace

Third, we can suffer from impurity of intention. Sometimes even faithful Catholics can fall into giving things up for Lent for the wrong reasons. We can think more in terms of self-improvement than in deepening our friendship with Christ. If we do that, even in a subtle, subconscious way, we will run out of steam pretty fast.

Lent is not the season of Catholic self-help. Lent is a season of grace, given to us by the Church to draw closer to our Lord and prepare for the celebration of his Passion and Resurrection. Any Lenten resolution needs to be geared towards helping us open our hearts to that grace and drink it in. (You can find more reflections on the season of Lent here.)

Finally, don’t be afraid to alter your Lenten resolutions if you find they are not helping you live the season deeply. By changing them, you are telling God that you really are interested in drawing closer to him during these holy days. I will be praying for you, and for all our readers here!

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

Used by permission – Faith and Family Live – Where everyday moms offer one another inspiration, support, and encouragement in Catholic living