Just kidding. This post is really about giving stuff up for Lent.
In contemporary America giving stuff up for Lent is experienced mostly as either a jokey declaration of Catholic identity or a barely-understood obligation. We just don't get it, and the reason we don't get it is that we have somehow forgotten the meaning and purpose of sacrifice in relation to the spiritual life.
Which is weird, because we remember it in other parts of our lives. We know that in order to have an attractive body, we must sacrifice. We have to work out, even if we don't feel like it. We have to avoid eating junk, even when we feel like it.
We know full well that worldly success entails sacrifice, and we are willing to do so to get there: hellish years in grad school, climbing up from the bottom of the ladder, long hours at work - sure, we know what sacrifice is and the fruit of it.
We also know, even if we fail to live it, that good strong loving relationships of any kind require sacrificing self. No kidding.
But somehow...when it comes to God, we're all "God's everywhere," and "God loves me as I am," our misinterpretations of which often lead us down a path in which we think that somehow, the spiritual life is different from every other part of life in that it requires nothing of us. It just happens and just is.
This isn't to say, either, that we need to "try harder" or judge our spiritual lives according to any measurable sense of what we do or sacrifice. That's not it either.
It's simply recognizing that we are not in as close a union with God as we could be as God wants us to be, and that the obstacles are those that we erect: the idols we put in God's place, the fears that we harbor, the love that we stifle, rather than share with others. There are walls that must be shattered, paths that must be avoided, illusions that must be shattered - all for Love's sake.
Lent gives us a small way there. We look at our lives and see what needs to be "given up" - not for any ulterior purpose like losing weight, but for the purpose of loving God more deeply. Sometimes this does involve making changes to our physical lives: abusing the bodies God gave us is like throwing a carefully-chosen gift back in a lover's face. But it can involve other sacrifices as well: giving up time to pray more. Giving up pride to be more honest in my prayer. Giving up even more time (and resources) to share with the poor.
The fruit being that in the end, in this small way, we've discovered that we don't need those things we've given up. We thought we needed them to be happy, but we didn't. We only need God. And so we rise, through God's grace and strength, freed from mortal chains, to a small, yet enticing taste of new life.
