It's a long-established understanding for us Catholics that Lent is hard. Really hard. Like..."giving-up-your-daily-coffee" hard.
It's supposed to be a challenge for us. And I could go on and on about how it's nothing compared to what Christ went through for us, etc. etc. But every Catholic has heard it all before, let's be real. It's kind of the point: to have it as such common knowledge that we barely even have to think about it. And even though our sacrifices are small in comparison, they are meant to be that reminder to us.
Here's what's roughest about Lent - we get to that age when we start to go: "Yeah, I know, but yeah, ok, I get it. I know. Yeah, mhmm..." And even when we've heard that speech about sacrifice like a kajillion times, we tend to mentally roll our eyes at it when we hear it.
Why?
We can work out to death. We can try all these fad diets. We can read self-help books and take personality tests all over the place just to find out what makes us happy, find out who we should date, find out what situations are good for us and bad for us. And we react accordingly. We can work to change our bodies, we can all but change our personalities for something we view as our betterment!
But giving up coffee for Lent is this big thing that we can't get beyond?
Maybe it's time we rethought this whole Lent thing. To remember those old talks we've been told since childhood, and update them a little to include who we've become. To embrace the new challenges of Lent.
Much love, everyone. Keep working out those spiritual selves!
Ceci Galvin
CYM
