DID YOU MAKE ANY New Year’s Resolutions this year? I ask, because studies have shown that only 1 out of 4 people keep theirs up for even a month. Chances are, you’ve already forgotten what you promised you’d do with your 2025.
Now it’s Lent, and you might have set some goals for yourself. Or maybe Ash Wednesday snuck up on you and you still haven’t decided what you want to do with your next 40 days. Maybe you’ve despaired that you’ve missed the boat; there’s no point in starting a Lenten sacrifice now. Or maybe you picked something big to do, but you’ve already slipped once or twice and given up.
It’s not too late! I’m here to give you some words of encouragement, and maybe an idea or two to help make this year’s Lent fruitful, even if you got started on the wrong foot.
HOW TO CHOOSE A LENTEN SACRIFICE
My biggest advice is this: small steps are crucial to forming new habits. Don’t overreach; you’ll only set yourself up for eventual “failure”. I use quotation marks because, remember, any progress at all is success.
The three pillars of Lent are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Let’s start by choosing one small item from each category to incorporate as a daily or weekly practice as we prepare for Easter:
PRAYER
Evaluate where you are now in your spiritual journey, and where you want to be. But then look down at your feet, metaphorically, and aim for one single step. If a daily Rosary feels overwhelming, try just one decade. If you’d eventually like to get to Mass every day, try picking just one extra Mass per week to start. Or here’s a surprising challenge: how about confidently making the sign of the cross in the lunchroom at work?
FASTING
My rule of thumb for Lent: add one thing, offer one thing up. Can you ditch sugar? Maybe just chocolate? Or maybe only on Fridays? Can you quit coffee? Or just the second or third cup? One year, I ate nothing but peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.
Fasting doesn’t have to be from food either. You can also fast from things like bad language, video games or gossip.
ALMSGIVING
God asks us to give until it hurts. Can you increase your giving during the Lenten season? Perhaps start with the money you saved by giving up that second coffee.
Or maybe money’s too easy, and you’re being asked to give of your time, talent or comfort? Alms can be a check in the collection basket, or they can be
volunteer hours, or charity to the homeless man on the offramp or kindness to that annoying person you usually avoid. Can you be generous with your attention to someone who needs it?
HAVE YOU ALREADY FAILED?
No, you haven’t. Maybe you ditched your New Year’s resolution on Jan. 2, and maybe you’ve already forgotten the Lenten resolutions you set for yourself on Wednesday. But please abandon the all-or-nothing mentality that’s telling you to give up. We have an enemy who wants Lent to be just like any other season on the calendar, but a savior who fell three times but still picked up His cross four times.
It’s not too late to choose or modify your Lenten sacrifices, and it’s never too late to wake up the next morning and start again. Jesus isn’t asking perfection from you. That’s not what Lent is about.
Lent is about preparation: bringing yourself into Holy Week just a little bit holier than you were before. Just a little bit humbled, strengthened, emptied and ready to be filled with the Graces of Christ’s passion and resurrection.