Another Look at the Three Pillars of Lenten and Christian Praxis

[[Dear Sister Lauren (sic), a couple of us were talking about Lent and how to approach it this year. (We're students at Saint _____ College so we are beginning to look at Lent in new ways! My friend wants to be a nun but probably not a hermit and reads your blog.) At a college ashes service yesterday we listened to a homily on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving and thought it was pretty good, but we also saw your article speaking about the crisis in the US right now, where you said it was not the time to give up chocolate or let go of some TV program we didn't really need anyway!! So we thought we would take a chance and decided to write you and ask how you choose something to do for Lent. Do you do fasting, prayer, and almsgiving or something else?]]

The Three Pillars of Lenten and Christian Praxis:

Thanks for your questions. Yes, I pray, fast, and give alms, but this may not look exactly like what you are expecting. The three pillars of Lenten practice also tend to be the three pillars of all Christian life, namely,  

1. some form of self-emptying or self-denial that allows us to become aware of and pay appropriate attention to our truest and deepest hungers (fasting), 
2. openness to and reception of the presence and power of God who satisfies those deepest and truest hungers (prayer), and  
3. giving to others something of what we have received in this process (alms or almsgiving). 

As you can see, our Lenten praxis is not about merely doing something extraneous to who we are; it involves choosing to do things that allow us to be our truest or most authentic selves. And, since we are only our truest or most authentic selves with God and within the human community, it first involves finding ways to allow God to be God for and with us. Likewise, because we are also most authentically or truly human in relation to others, and especially in our compassion for and generosity to others, the third pillar of Lenten and Christian praxis has us giving of our time and treasure to them with a careful eye toward what they most need if they are to be the persons God calls them to be. 

Becoming Truly Human:

Lenten praxis (or practice) is always about the things that make or allow us to be truly human, namely our loving relationship with ourselves, with God, and with others. 

1. 
   Fasting (or any kind of self-denial that could go by this name) helps free us from selfishness, self-centeredness, and concern with our own comfort or our fear of (or, less often, our preoccupation with) discomfort and actual suffering. It's a way of opening ourselves so we can receive more freely than we ever can when we are self-centered or fearful. 
2. Prayer opens us to being constituted by and as a dialogue with God (i.e., authentically human life is such a dialogue) that is both challenging and consoling; it helps us affirm that alone we are always incomplete and even inauthentic, while with and in God, however difficult things get, we are never alone and are moving toward fullness of life. Prayer helps us to live our own life more intensely, expansively, and truly as those who are infinitely loved and who, despite our very real weaknesses and incapacities, are called to be God's own counterparts in this world. 
3. Almsgiving reminds us that the ways God loves and gifts us, especially with Himself, are never for our sake alone. Eventually or ultimately, they are meant for others who need such love/gifts as much as we once needed and still need them ourselves. (As with God, we who are images of God are made to be a self gift. The triad of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving constitutes the heart of a continuing dynamic of Divine self-giving, human reception, and human self-giving that defines us as human beings who glorify (reveal) God with our lives.)

On Making Concrete Choices:

So, that's the theological analysis of the pillars of Lenten praxis and all Christian life. It's all really about a cycle of loving and becoming loving so others can enact the same cycle in their own lives. How do we translate that into concrete choices for any given Lenten Season?  

Fasting asks us to identify what prevents us from being aware of God and others. What is it that makes us less able or willing to depend on or be vulnerable to the love of God or of others? What isolates us and tempts us to believe we can go it alone? What allows us to be less conscious of others and the deepest hungers of our own hearts? (This can include some misguided notions of hermit life, by the way.)  So, for instance, what do we fill ourselves (or our lives) with instead of the "food" that comes from God and truly nourishes us? While this could be some form of unhealthy food, it could also be binging on the computer or being a workaholic, or refusing to take our schoolwork seriously. Thus, paradoxically, fasting might mean getting more rest than we ordinarily do or taking better care of ourselves more generally. We can determine how we might fast during Lent when we have identified some of these things.

Prayer asks us to give time and space to God so that he might love us as he desires so profoundly to do. If fasting helps make us vulnerable, prayer is the courageous and generous act that turns that vulnerability over to God to do with whatever he wills. What this mainly means is that we give God a chance to love us into wholeness. We let God be God-With-Us (for God is Love that wills to be Emmanuel), even if we are not necessarily aware of God's presence during this time. I would encourage you to do whatever helps you remain vulnerable during this time. That might include silent prayer with occasional breaks to walk around the room or prayer space, silent prayer followed by a favorite oral prayer (Hail Mary, Glory be, Our Father, a verse of a psalm or the refrain of a favorite hymn (spoken or sung), for instance). You might want to use a lighted candle to help you return to focus when that wavers. If vulnerability like this is difficult, feel free to wrap up in a blanket and imagine God holding you safely and warmly during this prayer time.

Alms or Almsgiving: Whatever fasting and prayer lead you to experience, I would encourage you to spend some time journaling on what these have been for you and anything you have learned, seen, heard, sensed, or imagined because of it. You need not write a lot, and it would be most helpful if you included an expression of gratitude to God. This practice will prepare you to be ever more aware of and able to give to others as mercy and compassion prompt you to. Some things you might not think of that qualify as almsgiving could include calling your parents or other family members more regularly while you are away at school, giving time and attention to someone you don't ordinarily regard adequately, or tutoring another student. You get the idea.

I don't always use the terms fasting and almsgiving, but the things I choose for Lent correspond to the meanings and dynamics I provided above.  My focus is always on personal growth and that means that it involves my relationship with God, with myself, and with others. Sometimes that means focusing on weaknesses and working through those in ways that strengthen or heal me, other times it means focusing more on potentialities that need to be more fully realized or talents and gifts that are to be used for the larger Church or my immediate faith community. Of course, I have a Rule of Life I live and try to live ever more deeply and truly. Attending to the way I reflect the vision of this Rule is one way I discern what God is calling me to. Another is through meetings with my director, who probably knows me better than anyone. Usually, ideas surface during our conversations, and occasionally, she will make an explicit suggestion of something I might do during Lent.

The current situation in the United States (and thus, the world) almost could not be more serious. If you can find ways to work toward justice as you see this needs to happen while being faithful to your studies, I would encourage you to do this. As I wrote earlier, the word crisis comes from the Greek κρισις, and it means a time or occasion of decision; this Lent is surely calling for such decisions from all of us. Ask yourself what is loving for the country and how you can specifically participate in that love. It may not be the way I do it or your friend does, but it is very important this year. Pray about this and then act as you feel called to act, that is, as is most faithful to God's loving will and most lifegiving for yourself and for others.