On Valentine’s Day this year – when we usually celebrate romantic love with fine dining and indulgent desserts, Catholics will be kicking off Lent with Ash Wednesday – celebrating Christ’s love with fasting and abstinence.  What an apparent mismatch! Does love mean giving your beloved chocolate, or giving chocolate up?

The confusion can be summed up well by recounting a spontaneous dialogue between a teen in one of my bible studies at school and her Christian teammate as they were driving together to practice. When she casually asked her friend what she was giving up for lent, the teammate looked at her with surprise and puzzlement.  Not only had she never heard of lent before, let alone giving things up for it, the very idea seemed counter to her sensibility.  She wondered why Catholics fast or do acts of self-denial, reasoning, “Doesn’t Jesus just want us to love him?”. The Catholic teen was equally confused, wondering “How can you love Jesus without sacrificing in some way?”. 

St. Francis de Sales offers wise insight into this difference of viewpoint:

“The world sees devout people as they pray, fast, endure injuries, take care of the sick, give alms to the poor, keep vigils, restrain anger, suppress their passions, give up sensual pleasures, and perform other actions painful and rigorous in themselves and by their very nature. But the world does not see the heartfelt inward devotion that renders all such actions pleasant, sweet, and easy…Sugar sweetens green fruit and ripe fruit corrects whatever is crude and unwholesome. Now devotion is true spiritual sugar for it removes bitterness from mortification and anything harmful from our consolations.”[i]

Maybe the conjunction of these two celebrations of love isn’t mismatched after all. Maybe their timing in 2024 is actually brilliant. Too often abstaining from meat on Fridays, spending greater time in prayer, and giving something up is viewed as a tedious burden.  Were they done for their own sake or out of a feeling of guilt or obligation they might be.  However Lent is a beautiful – one could say spiritually romantic – time with Christ. We withdraw from the world to devote time to our relationship. We spend alone time with the Lord through an intentional addition of prayer. We look within to consider that which is unloving and needs healing.  We counter our easy self-centeredness by looking for a way to serve in acts of giving.  As St. John wrote, “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The 40 days leading up to Christ’s ultimate act of love for us, is meant to love Christ in return and open our hearts more to receive the love He wishes to pour out on us in His blood on Good Friday and His resurrection on Easter Sunday.

St. Paul described this mismatch of openness in his second letter to the Corinthians (6:11-13):

“Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return – I speak as to children – widen your hearts also.”

Jesus has opened His heart wide, but we respond to His approach with hearts opened only a crack, letting in very little of the Lord.  Our own preoccupations and love for other things block His entrance – like a child’s room that’s so cluttered in mess you can barely get the door open. In today’s culture especially, Christ can be quickly crowded out by media time, consumerism, and overpacked schedules. From this vantage point, consider some common Lenten sacrifices and their loving effect. Giving up chocolate, sweets, energy drinks, french fries, or other favorite foods or beverages draws back the deluge of impulses that quickly and regularly pull us away from spiritual growth. For example, when you sit down to prayer do you think – “I need a snack?”, or do you run out of time for prayer but not out of time to make a Starbucks run? The sacrifice illumines our affections and the proportion of our heart they hold.  When we crave something, it draws our attention. When we say no to that craving, we remember why – Jesus’ no to His physical craving to avoid the suffering of the cross in favor of a higher craving for our salvation and the will of the Father (cf. Matthew 26:36-46).  At its most basic level, it’s a simple way to say “Jesus I love you more than ….”  – and the more meaningful the sacrifice the more meaningful the statement.  Secondly, impulses often undermine love of neighbor.  Every day we ask, “what’s for dinner?”, but neglect to ask “who needs my kindness today?”.  The strength of our impulses can even cause unloving actions – unrestrained speech devolving into gossip or biting words, fighting over resources, and rushing to attain things for ourselves before someone else, or sadly using others as objects to satisfy a desire rather than loving them as persons. Finally, it keeps us from virtues such as temperance which governs gluttony and other areas in need of self-control. 

Jesus does want us to love Him.  To do that, we need to remove the barriers blocking the door.  Our own attachments make it painful. However, the more we love Jesus, the more enjoyment we take in throwing things out of the way as we excitedly invite Him in. It feels good to gain self-mastery (with the help of grace) over things that regularly win our attention. Moreover, it would be a mistake to imagine the emptying that Catholics work at during lent as creating a barren void. On the contrary, with every inch of room we make for the Lord, He fills it with His presence and His love.  Pope St. John Paul II often exhorted us that self-fulfillment can only be achieved through self-gift.  During lent, we give of ourselves – and in loving Christ and others, we too are filled with love.  Sounds like the perfect Valentine’s gift after all!

[i] St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, trans. John K. Ryan (New York: Image Books, 1972) p.30

Related Posts

• Lent – That Others May See More of Jesus in Us
• Ash Wednesday – Preparing with Christ for Transformation in Christ

Connection Point – Share Your Experience

+ What are you giving up for Lent or adding in? Share your ideas in the comment section below.

+ What are some fruits from your past Lenten practices? 

Please keep all comments respectful; this is a platform for encouragement and accompaniment, not argument.

© 2024 Angela M Jendro

*Scriptural texts, unless otherwise noted, are taken from The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)