The purpose of Lent

The season of Lent began a few weeks ago and, like it has been most of my life, I find myself having to explain to friends and coworkers the purpose of Lent. I often get questions like, "How does not eating meat of Friday mean anything?" and "Why do you have to give something up?"

When I was in high school, I found these annual questions to be a nuisance and a bother. However, now I welcome them as a part of process of Lent. As I have gotten older, I have started to realize what Lent means to me and these questions helped me figure that out.

Throughout the year, whether we know it or not, our faith and devotion to God tends to dwindle and God sometimes gets moved to the back burner. The season of Lent is an opportunity to bring God back to the forefront of our lives. During Lent, we are asked to evaluate our own individual commitment to God and reflect on the areas in which we can improve.

By giving up something in our lives we are able to take that distraction away and focus that energy on our faith. Without the temptation of soda, chocolate, gambling, or any other daily vice we can redirect our attention and hearts to God. That energy and attention can be focused on prayer and bringing ourselves closer to God.

The fasting and abstention is a symbolic way for us to show our gratitude to Jesus as he went 40 days and 40 nights with basically nothing. We take this opportunity to sacrifice those things that we take for granted.

The praying, the fasting, the abstaining, the sacrificing should never be done to gain attention. Jesus never bragged about the things he sacrificed or the trials which he endured and neither should we. Lent is not a contest to see who can give up the most important thing, who can pray more or louder than his neighbor. Lent is a time for self reflection and self evaluation of the one-on-one relationship that we all have with God.