What Value is our Lenten Sacrifice?

by Michael Shackleton · February 24, 2015

We are to do penance for our sins and Lent is a good time to concentrate on this. The early Christians seem to have undertaken severe fasts during their days. Now I, as an old lady, no longer bound by Church law to observe the Lenten fast, am wondering whether my little Lenten sacrifices are of little value to the Church in comparison with those of our ancestors in the faith. Can you advise me? W van Graan

When St Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he told them of the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. The letter kills, he points out, but the spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6).

Someone who follows Church law to the letter, fasting and abstaining as required, but who lacks the spiritual motive of penance and a deeper life of love and prayer, is a good illustration of what Paul had in mind. Sticking only to the letter of the law is of no spiritual benefit to anyone. It does not deepen one’s relationship with God.

Jesus urged us not to make a show of fasting. Do not let others see that you are fasting, he said, but your Father who sees what you do in secret will reward you (Mt 6:18).

If the Father is going to reward you, it has to be because of the love for Christ and your neighbour that you express when you make small sacrifices.

St Therese of Lisieux can be your model during Lent. She wrote in her autobiography that she could not understand learned books on spirituality and on getting closer to God. She said she quickly tired of them because they broke her head and dried her heart. She left them to, what she called, great souls and great minds.

She wrote: The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers, and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.

This may look like a far too sentimental way of doing something special during Lent but it isn’t. It brings out the essential penitential nature of Lent, which is a time to make sacrifices of love for Christ and our neighbour.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (Jn 3:16). To appreciate the immense implication of these words, we should meditate on them and begin to understand how and why only our love for God and one another, and our gratitude, can give any meaning to any sacrifice we make for his sake.