Lent Is Pre-Season Training

Athletes and Catholics are similar in that they have two main seasons – pre-season and in-season. In this analogy, the liturgical year periods of Christmas, Easter, and Ordinary Time are the in-seasons for Catholics. That makes Lent and Advent our pre-seasons.

Pre-season is all about preparing. Athletes work on building up their strength and endurance. They aren’t yet ready to perform in competitions, but they are doing what is necessary to get refreshed, retrained, and in shape for what is soon to come.

For Catholics, during the pre-seasons of Lent and Advent, we work on refreshing our pious practices and retraining our faith beliefs and theological understanding. We are doing what is necessary to get in spiritual shape for the big event that is to come, be it Easter or Christmas.

Taking On Special Disciplines During the Pre-Season

Many of the faithful during the pre-season of Lent take various actions so to increase or resuscitate their awareness of Christ and His sacrifice. They may add attending weekday Mass to their schedule. They may start praying the Rosary. Or perhaps they make reading Scripture a new, daily routine. Still other Catholics focus their pre-season training on a self-examination of their sinfulness. They repent and ask forgiveness by participating in the Sacrament of Confession.

Fasting is one discipline not practiced enough during pre-season. This act of self-denial can be a perfect way to refresh, retrain, and get in shape for the in-season of Eastertime.

A powerful result of fasting is it breaks up the fleshly desires that often keep one from desiring only God. A person can better curb one’s disordered appetites if he or she employs acts of self-denial.

Catholics are to be both followers of our Lord and evangelizers for our Lord. A big roadblock to fulfilling these purposes is if we have disordered appetites. These could be sins of lust or gluttony. Instead of having sex or food consume us and be our biggest desire, we need to allow the Spirit of God to consume us and be our guide.

Fasting takes one’s mind off of one’s own needs, thus providing the opportunity to focus on feeding one’s soul. Uncontrolled desires form most of a person’s bad habits. Forgoing a meal or giving up food for an entire 24-hour period strengthens one’s self-control. This could help in the future with controlling other desires – from limiting gossiping to refraining from viewing pornography. 

Fasting is a form of mortification that helps us to stay focused on our Lord rather than upon our fleshly temptations. When we fast, we are going against what our flesh desires. When we go against what our flesh desires, we build up our interior strength and endurance. 

God Likes It When We Fast

God likes it when His sons and daughters discipline their bodies and appetites by suppressing desires and practicing abstinence. By engaging in fasting on a regular basis as a form of self-denial, a Catholic is getting closer to God and growing more spiritually. These benefits are similar to what is gained when one performs other pious actions like daily prayer, consistent reading of the Scriptures, and regular participation in the Sacrament of Confession. 

St. Francis de Sales said this about the spiritual and virtuous effects of fasting:

“Besides the ordinary effect of fasting in raising the mind, subduing the flesh, confirming goodness, and obtaining a heavenly reward, it is also a great matter to be able to control greediness, and to keep the sensual appetites in the whole body subject to the law of the Spirit. And although we may be able to do but little, the enemy (Satan) nevertheless stands more in awe of those whose he knows can fast.” 

Pope Benedict XVI once said about fasting:

“Fasting represents an important ascetically practice, a spiritual arm to do battle against every possible disordered attachment to ourselves. Freely chosen detachment from the pleasure of good and other material goods helps the disciple of Christ to control the appetites of nature, weakened by original sin, whose negative effects impact the entire human person.”

Jesus not only fasted Himself, but He insisted that His followers fast. When speaking to His disciples in Matthew 6, Jesus didn’t say, “If you fast…” He said (twice), “When you fast…” This inferred an obvious expectation to fast.

“When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites…But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to others to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.” 

During the Pre-Season, Elevate Your Fasting

Unless one has a medical condition that prohibits it, it would be beneficial for Catholic adults to pledge to elevate the amount of fasting they perform compared to the Church’s minimal expectations.  The Church stipulates:

• Everyone 18 or older, and under 59 years of age, is bound to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
• On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, only one full meatless meal is allowed. Two other meatless meals may be taken, but together they should not equal another full meal. 

Elevating the level of sacrificing is good way during the pre-season of Lent to get in spiritual shape. One will more intensely feel a mortification if he or she goes beyond the current, anemic regulation of “don’t eat three full meals” for simply five percent of the Lenten period.

Stepping up the intensity a notch could consist of fasting 20% of the 40 days of Lent by making every Friday a fast day, not just Good Friday (and Ash Wednesday). Then taking it up one notch more would be to redefine what “fasting” looks like.  Instead of “eat one full meal and two smaller meals,” refrain from eating any food for at least 20 straight hours. (But low or no-caloric fluids are allowed.)

An example of this would be to stop eating on Thursday night by 9pm. Then only resume when eating Friday’s dinner at 5pm. In early Church history, this type of sacrificing meals was a “black fast.” Today this type of fasting has become a popular health practice called “intermittent fasting.” It can provide physical benefits such as weight loss, stabilization of insulin levels, and reduction of inflammation. 

Of course, Jesus’s reason to fast 2,000 years ago, and Catholics’ reasons to fast in earlier generations were never about a need to drop some pounds. Denying oneself food on a repeatedly, continuing basis has always been a powerful, penitential practice that bestows great benefits upon the soul.

A person who restricts intaking food and drink for an extended amount of time is getting in spiritual shape. One of the greatest doctors of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, wrote in the Summa Theologica that fasting should be done for three beneficial reasons:

1. In order to “bridle the lusts of the flesh”;
2. In order that “the mind may arise more freely to the contemplation of heavenly things”;
3. In order to “satisfy for sins” by cleansing one’s soul and rendering one’s heart contrite and humble.

Take Advantage of the Lenten Pre-Season to Be Ready for Easter

Don’t underestimate the value of fasting. Duty and obedience are often what sanctify us. It is not very likely that only keeping to the Catholic Church’s minimal fasting regulations and only doing this on two of the 40 days of Lent will help one grow spiritually. But increasing the intensity and commitment by fasting for longer hours and additional days will more likely bestow spiritual riches during this upcoming pre-season prior to Easter.

With Jesus, the Saints, and earlier generations of Catholics as our models, we should strive to make tougher sacrifices. In this way, our mortifying and suffering are turned into offerings to our Lord. 

The following “Prayer to Grow With the Church Year” reminds Catholics of the importance of getting in spiritual shape during the pre-seasons of Lent and Advent.  

Lord Jesus,
I know that all human relations take time if they are to grow and deepen.
This is also true of my relations with You, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which must grow over the course of my life.
However, this growth is not automatic; time alone means nothing unless I add earnest efforts to it.

You have inspired Your Church to set aside special times when this growth can develop more intensely – the special seasons of the Church Year.
If I fail to move toward You during these times, I waste precious opportunities and endanger my spiritual life.
Help me to take them seriously and make a real attempt to use them well, so that I may grow into the person You want me to be.

Amen.