How to Live Lent Well
Lent begins this Wednesday with the reception of ashes on our foreheads as a sign of our sorrow for our sins and our desire to begin again by God’s grace. During Lent, all disciples are challenged to engage the spiritual life more intentionally through the practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. This excerpt from a sermon by St. Peter Chrysologus from the early 5th century shows why these practices are three legs of a tripod that all need attention for Lent to be fruitful.
There are three things, my brethren, by which faith stands firm, devotion remains constant, and virtue endures. They are prayer, fasting and mercy [almsgiving]. Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains, mercy receives. Prayer, mercy and fasting: these three are one, and they give life to each other.
Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. Let no one try to separate them; they cannot be separated. If you have only one of them or not all together, you have nothing. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others you open God's ear to yourself…
Fasting bears no fruit unless it is watered by mercy. Fasting dries up when mercy dries up. Mercy is to fasting as rain is to the earth. However much you may cultivate your heart, clear the soil of your nature, root out vices, sow virtues, if you do not release the springs of mercy, your fasting will bear no fruit.
When you fast, if your mercy is thin your harvest will be thin; when you fast, what you pour out in mercy overflows into your barn. Therefore, do not lose by saving, but gather in by scattering. Give to the poor, and you give to yourself. You will not be allowed to keep what you have refused to give to others.
May your merciful almsgiving during this Lenten season bear a great harvest of holiness for you and your loved ones!