What Are You Giving up for Lent?

ver since Ash Wednesday, many people have asked me, "What are you giving up for Lent?" This is a common question that people often inquire of each other around this time. In fact, last week, even the priest in my parish asked the children in the Eucharistic Youth Group the same question. The act of giving up things has traditionally been considered an act suitable to the season of Lent because this has always been an integral part of this season of repentance.

But, in Lent, giving things up is more than just doing it for its own sake. There has to be meaning to our act of giving up. Traditionally, Lent is a time for us to reflect upon life and our relationship with God and with others. It is also an opportunity for us to look at those areas of our lives that need to be changed if we are to become more responsible and sensible in light of our relationship with Jesus Christ, the Light of the world.

Unfortunately, many of us do not reflect on this seriously enough and have come to equate the act of repentance simply with giving up things, oftentimes as an act of self-punishment. We as Catholics give up meat on Fridays. Some of us try to give up things that we enjoy like watching TV. Others give up going out too much. A friend of mine is giving up smoking just for Lent. A lot of time, these acts of giving up are done with great difficulty and not without complaining. Don't get me wrong. There is nothing bad about giving things up, especially things that are harmful for us, for example, smoking. But without real knowledge of the reason for our sacrifices, these acts become meaningless and empty gestures. When done conscientiously, giving things up is an excellent way for us to reflect on our life and develop our spirituality. By giving up certain excesses, we are assessing what the physical pleasures really means for us. We realize that bodily pleasures are only temporary and that they cannot bring us lasting happiness. Giving up excesses helps us to focus on the more important things in life–our relationships with ourselves, family, friends, the poor in the world, and God.

In my college dorm, each of us have a meal plan a week that is composed of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Every year during Lent, there is an organization fighting hunger around the world that comes to our college and ask us to give up one of our meals. The money that would have gone to our food that time would be collected from the college by the organization and be contributed to buying food for those who are hungry in the world. Because college students often do not eat all their meals anyway, many of them are happy to contribute a meal to the poor. As a result, each year, this charitable organization manages to collect thousands of dollars from the students at my university.

The example of charity above indicates to us that Lent is not just about giving up. Rather, it is about giving up in order to give. We give up things in ourselves so that we may be more effective in giving to others. When we give up a meal, we can use that money to help one of the millions of children in the world who go to bed hungry every night. When we give up watching television, it is useless if we substitute it by spending that time surfing the internet. That would amount to basically the same thing. Instead, giving up watching television for an hour means that we can give our time to spending with someone who enjoys talking to us, who benefits from being with us, and who longs to be around us. In that hour, we can give a friend whom we haven't heard from in a long time a call. In that hour, we can even possibly mend broken relationships.

Indeed, giving up is part of Lent. Repentance is essential to Lent. But repentance does not mean punishment. Rather, repentance means conversion. In the process of repenting, or converting our lives, we decide to assess our attitude toward life, to get in touch with our feelings, and to see how we balance the two in our day-to-day experiences. In repentance, we pay attention to our spirituality and try to improve our prayer life that looks at our addictive and destructive behaviors to find ways to correct and overcome them. Lent is our sacred time. It is a time to do serious, personal work toward becoming holy, integrated persons–our ultimate aim being inner peace and strength to love God, neighbor, and self as a way of life.

The actions associated with Lent include fasting, praying, and giving. These acts find their meaning in our actions and attitudes toward the poor, alienated, and marginalized people throughout our community, nation, and world. The purpose of fasting, prayer, and charity is to unite us more closely to the poor, thus inspiring us to become more sensitive to their needs and more responsible for the establishment of justice and peace.

In fasting, we fast from being negative, from being careless, from being selfish. Instead, we try to convert to being generous, to being holy, to being loving children to our parents, being caring brothers and sisters to our siblings, and being selfless to our friends. We also try to convert to being committed to doing our part to bring about peace and justice in this world, in which we live and of which we are a part.

Lastly, Lent is a quiet season because it is a season of inner reflection. Therefore, our actions must also be quiet so that what the right had does, even the left hand does not know. As Jesus assures us, what we do quietly and know in our heart, our Father in heaven will know and reward us accordingly. May this Lenten season truly be a time of blessing and genuine conversion for each and everyone of us.