During Lent, Catholics are urged to pray, give to charity and fast. The faithful also “give things up” as they unite themselves with Our Lord’s self-denial in the desert before His triumph over Satan. Lent should be a time of success but can often end in failure when good intentions succumb to human weakness as the bar of self-denial is set unattainably high.
Yet all athletes know that “lifestyle” is important when making sacrifices to obtain a higher good. What is most important during this time is to give up sin rather than, say, sugar in tea. Self-denial, with prayer and charity, aids this but it is best practised through hour-by-hour acts of saying “no” to little things as well as to great, of purifying the will and conforming it to that of the Father, as Jesus asks us to do.
This is the way of the athlete – a disciplined lifestyle of steady and sustainable self-denial which produces success. It makes us disciples.
If, by Holy Week, you have observed Lent well, then self-mortification in union with Our Lord’s Passion is recommended. The saints were not moderate in this respect; think of the hair shirt worn by St Thomas More, or St Francis of Assisi rolling naked in nettles.
By April it might be warm enough for the latter, but it still might not be advisable.
