Why the long face? Lent is meant to be joyful and practical

The Catholic Herald• March 7, 2025

In the latest March edition of the Catholic Herald magazine, we are reminded by Dom Henry Wansbrough that, properly observed, the Lenten season is meant to be joyful.

“St Benedict’s Rule twice mentions the joy of the Holy Spirit, once by making an offering to God ‘with the joy of the Holy Spirit’ and once by waiting for Easter ‘in the joy of holy desire’,” he observes.

That is a salutary reminder of the nature of Lenten observances: they should be practical as well as uplifting.

Avoiding idle chatter is quite a big resolution for some of us, but it is practical. So too were the old prescriptions for the season: eschewing meat, dairy products and eggs, as Orthodox Christians still do. These were hard resolutions, but they were communal – so people shared their privations with their neighbours – and they were simple. There is much to be said for that.

There is now no universal requirement for Catholics to abstain from meat for the whole of Lent, but it would be a very good Lenten resolution: traditional and specific. Almsgiving is the other element of Lenten observance, and that too is specific, no matter how small the amount.

This is a time when most of us are finding it harder than ever to pay our way, let alone donate to the needy, but we have it on the best authority that God sets more store by the widow’s mite than the generosity of the rich.

Thank God, Lent doesn’t include Sundays, which are feasts of the Resurrection; there are some important solemnities during the 40 days. It would, for instance, be quite wrong to fast on 19 March (St Joseph) or 25 March (the Annunciation) – and fasting is hardly in the spirit of St Patrick’s Day on 17 March.

In truth, though, most of us are more likely to eat too much during the rest of the year; the habit of grazing and of overconsumption is part of the food industry’s model, and fasting is an opportunity to break our dependence and addiction, even if it is just chocolate.

If Muslims can give up food and drink from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan – a season very much more in evidence than hitherto in the Anglosphere – then it should be possible for Catholics to fast heroically as well.

And at least we know there is an end in sight. Come Easter, the abstinence will have been worth it.

Photo: People receive ashes on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday, marking the start of Lent, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, USA, 5 March 2025. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images.)