I suspect that many of my classmates did some quick thinking, while the rest of us resorted to the time-honored tradition of responding, “Candy.” The more ambitious students, who wanted to get into Sister’s good graces, replied “candy and ice cream.”
And so candy it was although, truth be told, I never really succeeded in my penitential resolution. Sometime around week four, I lapsed in my resolve and snuck a Snickers bar or some Peanut M&M’s and was consumed by guilt. Once you slip, you feel like a failure.
Let’s face it, giving up anything is hard for a kid and equally hard for an adult. Throughout my life, I’ve had difficulty giving up candy because every so often I get an intense craving for something sweet, and I feel compelled to go rampaging through Munson’s Chocolates and buy everything in my sight. The more processed sugar, the better.
Then, I have to listen to a familiar lecture by my wife about all the damage I’m doing to my body, followed by her prediction — which is always spot on — that my triglycerides are going to be off the charts when I go for my annual physical.
I’m convinced she even text-messages my primary care physician to squeal on me because those numbers in my blood work always seem to be the first thing he looks at.
But if you think giving up candy is a penitential ordeal, you have no idea how hard it is giving up cigarettes when you smoke two packs a day. I’ve been there. OK, OK, those days are long gone, but I remember what it was like. There, too, I could only made it part of the way through Lent because my will power faltered. The good news is that in the end, I gave them up entirely when I was 25, which was one of the hardest things I ever did. (I encourage all smokers to do the same, and Lent is a good time to start.)
I realize that in recent years, there’s been an emerging sentiment that suggests “giving up” isn’t really what Lent is about. It’s a time for penance, fasting, abstinence, personal sacrifices, self-reflection, almsgiving and drawing closer to Christ. So I say to myself, “OK, fine.”
However, something in the back of my brain keeps calling to mind Jesus during those 40 torturous days in the desert. Of course, he wasn’t tempted by a Snickers bar. His trials were immeasurably harder … right from Satan, the master of deceit and temptation.
As Matthew recounts in his Gospel: “Then, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry.” And that’s when Satan approached him with three temptations — to turn stone into bread, to worship the devil and achieve worldly power and glory, and to throw himself from a parapet of the Temple so his angels could save him from harm.”
I keep returning to the tried and true practice of “giving up,” which although it’s something quite simple, isn’t easy. Self-denial never is, especially in a culture that has us programmed for instant gratification. “Giving up” is daunting for modern Catholics because we’re so attached to so many pleasures and pastimes.
Years ago, everyone used to exchange war stories when they were asked, “What are you giving up?”
They typically committed themselves to refraining from smoking or drinking or swearing. (Shouldn’t we be doing that anyway?) Today, more likely and more meaningful possibilities could be turning off the TV or curtailing the social media obsession. Doing that, I’m convinced, would make the world a better place.
Being a member of the Baby Boomer generation, I’ve always had trouble with delayed gratification. It has never been part of my DNA. Unlike the Greatest Generation, which clearly learned about the necessity of giving things up during ten years of the Great Depression and World War II, we Baby Boomers never had to confront similar challenges. Nor have the generations that followed us.
So this Lent, I’m revisiting my past. I’ll give it some thought and then commit to giving up something. Self-denial is good for the soul. It strengthens you. At least that’s what Sister told us many years ago, even though at the time we were too young to understand what she meant.
I suppose, I’m in good company. It was Venerable Fulton Sheen who once said, “Lenten practices of giving up pleasures are good reminders that the purpose of life in not pleasure. The purpose of life is to attain to perfect life — all truth and undying ecstatic love — which is the definition of God. In pursuing that goal, we find happiness.”