Each year the Catholic Church offers its people a spiritual boot camp of sorts in the season of Lent. It is a time to focus on our relationship with the Lord and double down on our practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving — or start them anew.
Chicago Catholic reached out to Jesuit Father J. Michael Sparough, a spiritual director, author and retreat master, for advice on how to grow closer to the Lord during Lent. Sparough is director of Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat Center in Barrington and president of Heart to Heart, a Catholic media ministry that offers daily video reflections for Lent (htoh.us).
Chicago Catholic: What is the best way to begin our Lenten journey?
Jesuit Father J. Michael Sparough: The starting point is really praying to know “Lord, how do you want me to grow this Lent closer to you?” So that it’s not simply an exercise in self-improvement or self-examination. Really put it before the Lord in prayer. That’s the starting point.
Just begin by assessing: Where am I? Am I in really hot water right now? Have I drifted away from the church? Am I steeped in sin? Am I caught in addiction? If you are, then you can trust that the Holy Spirit is going to be throwing cold water on your face to wake you up. The Enemy [Satan] is probably going to say, “Hey, no big deal. Lent is overrated.”
Most people are trying to grow closer to the Lord. In that instance, the Holy Spirit and the Evil One switch tactics. The Evil One is going to attack, attack, attack and fill you with anxiety, stress. What the Holy Spirit is going to do is encourage you. It is going to be a voice of consolation, of inspiration, of hope.
It’s so helpful to remember that Scripture calls the Devil “the Accuser,” and Satan loves to masquerade as God and throw our sins in our face, throw our failures in our face. For somebody who is trying to grow in grace, that is not how the Holy Spirit operates. The Holy Spirit gently challenges us, like a good coach.
Chicago Catholic: Do we focus too much on what we are denying ourselves during Lent?
Sparough: Lent is not just about giving something up, it’s about conversion of heart.
The scribes and the Pharisees were obsessed with their fasting and their food purification and they miss the bigger things that Jesus gets so angry about. They are obsessing on the little things and they are missing the big things.
Fasting is a discipline to help us grow in interior freedom. It’s not a punishment. It’s training the heart. It’s not fasting for the sake of fasting. It’s about breaking from addiction.
There are many different forms of fasting. When we think of fasting, we usually go right to food. That’s traditional and that’s important. Let’s not minimize that. Other forms of fasting are from social media, from television, from time-wasters.
News consumption is a big one that we’re talking about. There’s been a lot of press recently about fasting from social media. I’m talking to more and more people that say they really have to be very careful when they listen to the news and how much they listen because they just come away angry and depressed.
The basic criteria for fasting is, “What has too much power over me?” Here’s where the 12-step program is helpful. Many spiritual teachers would say we are all addicted to something.
Lent is not always subtraction, but is addition. If you empty something out, fill that space with grace.
Chicago Catholic: What if we have good intentions for Lent but fall short?
Sparough: With prayer, begin with what you are already doing and ask yourself if you can go one step deeper. This is where self-knowledge is helpful.
If I tend to do too much, I have to be really careful of trying to do too much during Lent because it’s going to lead to discouragement. But, if you know you are a person who tends to slack off, then you need to step up your game.
The way I like to put it is Lent requires a little bit of belt tightening — enough to stretch, but not so much that you’re going to burst your pants.
I hear this over and over again. You try to do too many things, then you get discouraged and you’re left not doing anything because you’re discouraged. You become very self-reproachful. “I blew it. I wasted this Lent. I may as well try next year.”
No. Get up and try again.
Chicago Catholic: How can we improve our prayer during Lent?
Sparough: There are very traditional practices like the rosary, reading daily Scripture. St. Ignatius is big on journaling. Putting it down on paper makes it more real.
There’s sacramental prayer, the Eucharist. If you’re not going to at least weekly Mass, make sure you get to Mass on Sunday. If you’re already going to weekday Mass, can you add another day?
Make sure you go to confession at least once during Lent. If you can get there a couple of times, so much the better.
Adoration — I’m just delighted and surprised at the comeback of that Eucharistic adoration is making, especially among young people. It’s so radically countercultural. In our hyper, plugged-in culture, the quiet and the silence of adoration is so helpful.
Communal prayer — pray with a spouse. Pray with a friend. Pray with your family. Join a prayer group or a Bible study.
You can also attend a parish mission or attend a retreat. Getting out of your environment is just so helpful. That’s the experience of Jesus going out into the desert; you break from your normal pattern.
Here’s the wisdom of the liturgical year. Everything is not Ordinary Time. Lent is a special time. It’s like there is a sale on grace. There are special graces that are available during Lent that are not available the rest of the year. You go to the store when there’s a sale so you up your game during Lent. There’s such wisdom in that.
Chicago Catholic: How can we tackle almsgiving?
Sparough: I always say almsgiving is probably the most neglected. Almsgiving is love made concrete. Lent without mercy is incomplete. Pope Francis, and now Pope Leo, have both reminded us that faith must touch the poor.
Remember the corporal works of mercy that come out of Matthew 25: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned, bury the dead, visit the sick, give alms to the poor.
This is the criteria for the Last Judgment. It’s not, “How many novenas did I pray?” It’s, “Did my faith inspire me to love my neighbor in concrete ways?” “Who needs my mercy this Lent?” Again, we can’t do everything, but we can do something.
Chicago Catholic: One of the most important things we can do is the daily examen, you said. What is that?
Sparough: St. Ignatius talked about this a lot. It’s reviewing your day. In the context of Lent, you ask, “Is my plan too ambitious?” “Is it too weak?” “What fruit is emerging from my Lenten plan?”
Be gentle with yourself. Again, the voice of the Holy Spirit is not harsh. It’s the voice of the Good Shepherd. It’s a gentle invocation, not a crushing command.
The simplest way of doing an Ignatian examen is to ask yourself two questions: What am I most grateful for in the course of the day? What am I least grateful for?
Pray in thanksgiving for all the things that went well in the day. What are the things you struggled with most in the day? Bring both of those things to the Lord. Talk to the Lord. Think of the examen as a conversation with your best friend about your day.
Do it each evening, or some people prefer to do it in the morning. Find the time to work for you. You can do this on your own. You can do it with a trusted friend. You can do it walking. You can write it down. There’s lots of different ways of doing it.