Lent’s call to discipline

A few years ago, I went to a birthday party for a priest friend who was turning 80. This friend was a great homilist and a great writer, but what also impressed me was that at 80, this lean, wiry priest was still getting up every cold Alaskan morning to jog through the predawn streets.

Mar 21, 2014

By Effie Caldarola
A few years ago, I went to a birthday party for a priest friend who was turning 80. This friend was a great homilist and a great writer, but what also impressed me was that at 80, this lean, wiry priest was still getting up every cold Alaskan morning to jog through the predawn streets.

Eventually, as he moved on in the decade, he gave a nod to advancing age by choosing the gym over the icy sidewalks of Anchorage.

At his party, he took a slim piece of decadent chocolate cake, a rare indulgence. How do you do it? I asked. He looked at me and said, “Discipline.” And then he thought about it for a moment, and he said it again: discipline.

There are lots of things we can say about Lent. But I think it might be good to breathe in that word, “discipline,” and give it some consideration during the Church’s great liturgical season of penitence.

Certainly, Lent isn’t primarily about making an effort. It’s not about the focus being on “giving up” something, as if forsaking chocolate will somehow win grace. No, Lent is about focusing on the One who has come to save me, poor and undisciplined as I am.

Yet, Lent offers such a golden opportunity to bring some needed discipline into our spiritual lives. It is a reasonable period of time to make a commitment, and a long enough period of time to form a habit. Discipline is an underrated virtue in our modern world.
Have you failed at your resolve to dedicate some time each morning to prayer? Is there spiritual reading you’d like to do “some day,” but you allow the television or your computer screen to gobble up your time? Is there a nasty little sin — gossiping or being judgmental — that you’d like to work on?

St Ignatius of Loyola said, “He who goes about to reform the world must begin with himself, or he loses his labour.” That’s a great slogan for Lent.

Reform might involve “giving up” and should involve fasting and abstinence, even beyond the times the Church asks of us. But we need to give meaning to this sacrifice.

One year, I gave up my too-frequent trips to the coffee shop and gave the money I would have spent on lattes to charity. A very small sacrifice, I know, but one that kept Lent on my mind and ultimately did someone else a little good.

That’s a good combination: performing a small discipline that also serves another. If we’re giving up our nighttime bowl of ice cream primarily because we want to lose five pounds, we should reconsider our motivations.

Another time, I tried to work on my negative thinking about people. Every time I noticed I was criticizing someone mentally, I instead offered a short prayer for that person. It’s painful to admit how much extra praying I did that Lent.

The other quote I love for Lent is in Isaiah 58:6-7: “Is this not, rather, the fast that I choose. ... Is it not sharing your bread with the hungry, bringing the afflicted and the homeless into your house?”

This reminds me that Lent should open me to greater service. St Ignatius liked to call his Jesuits “men for others,” and so, too, we should be men or women for others. Perhaps a Lenten discipline would be getting out of our comfort zone and volunteer at a shelter or food pantry. How can Lent help us be a person for others?

Pray about it ahead of time. Think outside the box. Ask yourself what would be a great gift you could give your spiritual life. Make sure it’s doable, generous, joyful, life-giving to you and others.

And then, like my good friend on a cold, dark morning, just summon your discipline and do it.

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