Today is my birthday. This is, of course, a cause of joy and thanksgiving for the gift of my life from God. But as I look back on past birthdays, I am reminded that (along with others born during this time of year) my birthday often falls during Lent. In fact, only one year in my entire life will I barely squeak out and land on Mardi Gras. And if I were born one day later, I would be part of a special group of people who will never celebrate a birthday outside of Lent.
Because my birthday has always fallen inside of Lent, I was always careful each year when selecting my penance to add a fine-print footnote that my Lenten penance would not include my birthday. After all, I often gave up chocolate for Lent, and surely God would not want me to give up chocolate cake on my birthday!
But what are our penances really supposed to be about? Is the goal merely to make ourselves uncomfortable, even on “special” days, such as our birthdays? On Ash Wednesday, we are reminded that when we fast we should not appear to be fasting (Matt 6:18). We may struggle to carry out this teaching of our Lord, because we may want to let God know that we are fasting! In fact, we may try to impress God by taking on some voluntary penances in order to show him how well we can tolerate these discomforts for him. In this season of repentance, when we focus on our need for forgiveness, we may think that the point of our penances is to provoke God’s pity.
Thinking that we need to get God’s attention and that we can do this by being in discomfort or pain runs deep in us as human beings. An excellent example can be found in the book of Kings. In a well-known passage, the prophet Elijah engages in a contest with the pagan prophets of Ba’al to see whether the Lord or Ba’al will send fire from heaven (1 Kgs 18:25-39). The prophets of Ba’al engage in all kinds of different activities, even making cuts on their bodies to try to provoke a reaction from Ba’al, their pagan god of weather and fertility. And the prophets of Ba’al are not alone in this way of thinking. In the book of Micah, the people of Judah try to offer God sacrifices of livestock, oil, or even their own children in order to atone for their sins (Mic 6:7).
But the one true God does not require the sacrifice of children or any other discomfort in order to forgive us and show us his mercy. We don’t have to do anything to get God’s attention and we can’t manipulate him. He’s always listening and watching over us and, as is clear from Elijah’s prayer, it is God who takes the initiative in our deeper conversion and who turns our hearts back to him. When we take on penances, these penances are not meant to impress God, but rather to cooperate in his action of purifying our hearts. But this is always a cooperation. The primary work is always his.
Just as my physical birth came from the initiative of my parents, so my spiritual rebirth at baptism and its renewal each Lent does not come from my own initiative, but from God. And that is what Lent and our Lenten penances should be all about. It’s about drawing close to the Lord, “that [we] may know that you, Lord, are God and that you have turned [our] hearts back to you” (1 Kgs 18:37).
✠
Photo by Lorene Farrugia on Unsplash
