Lenten Campaign 2025
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This year for Lent, my daughter is sleeping on the floor as a penance. It turns out, she likes sleeping on the floor. Last night I went into her room to kiss her goodnight and she has a whole elaborate tent made of bed sheets. Inside, the tent is strung with Christmas lights and a stack of bedtime books have been gathered into a sort of nest. It doesn’t change the fact that she’s sleeping directly on the wood floor and it can’t possibly be comfortable, but the whole complicated edifice got me thinking about how, sometimes, penance can become a source of joy.
Every year on Ash Wednesday, my empty stomach signals discomfort. To put it mildly, I’m not good at fasting. I don’t like being hungry and those close to me might dare say I become “tough to be around.” Some penances fit us better than others, I guess. Although to be fair sleeping on the floor would probably not bring me great joy, either.
What does bring me great joy, though, is the parish fish fry. Fish fries are a matter of some controversy because some argue that penance shouldn’t take the form of partying with your friends in the parish gym, eating fried fish, and (in St. Louis because we’re an odd bunch) heaps of spaghetti. There’s too much of a celebratory nature about it, some think, to truly be penitential. To me, it’s exactly the opposite. Giving up meat on Fridays is a penance but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it.
The funny thing about some penances is that, if we practice them for a while, we begin to like them. They become a permanent part of who we are.
Some people start praying more intentionally as part of their Lenten disciplines and, once Lent is over, they keep praying because the experience has been a good one. Some take up a spiritual work of mercy as a form of almsgiving and quickly realize that their personal relationships have improved as a result. Even when Lent is done, they continue the extra spiritual works. Even something like giving up sugary food results in a vast improvement in health and energy, so the temporary change in diet becomes a long-term habit. These improvements in character are to be celebrated.
Space for better
That’s why I’m all for the joyful element of penance. There’s excitement in challenging ourselves even if the penance itself remains uncomfortable. Our excitement arises from the intuition that we are making space for something better. We are setting ourselves free. Something as simple as the Good Friday fast has revealed something important to me over the years; I never look forward to it but I actually can accomplish it. I can, at least for that day, trade a lesser good for a greater good.
Obviously, approaching penance with a positive attitude is ideal, but even if we moan and grumble about it, joy is still present. This is because joy isn’t really an emotion. It comes from somewhere much deeper within us.
For example, St. Paul tells the Christians in Philippi to “Rejoice always.” The advice took on a whole new meaning when I realized that he wrote those words while he was in prison.
Or even more astounding, I vividly remember when I first read St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s autobiography and she described her reaction to learning she was terminally ill.
“When I learned that I was sick, I was not surprised,” she writes, “for I had long foreseen it. I was not sad, for I felt that I was entering into a new life, and I was not afraid, for I knew that Our Lord would be with me."
This is joy. She had a sense of peace and happiness that carried her through a terrible, negative change in her circumstances. Joy carried her all the way to the end. Clearly, it isn’t related to feelings of pleasure or success. It arrives to us from a hidden source.
Where can we get it?
So what is that source? How do we maintain joy in all circumstances, including voluntary penance and involuntary suffering?
St. Thomas Aquinas explains that joy is caused by love. We have it when we’re in the presence of a person we love, or if we know a person we love is prospering. His explanation unlocks the mystery.
Penance brings joy because it makes space for a greater love. We give up something lesser to make room for that which is of more value. Through penance we draw closer to each other and to God, which is why we come to appreciate and enjoy our penances. Even as we give up smaller pleasures, our joy grows. This is the explanation for why my daughter loves sleeping on the floor, why the parish fish fry is so appealing, and why our temporary penances often become permanent.
The source of joy isn’t the big event, the indulgent pleasure, the next huge achievement. It’s the small, faithful love of everyday life. As Shemaiah Gonzalez writes in her book Undaunted Joy,
“It is the small stuff that builds a joy-filled life. God is there in those moments. It is easier to see those moments when I am close to God, for joy is the fruit of knowing him.”
The more joy we have, the more successful our Lent will be. So, friends, take up your spiritual disciplines with joy. Penance is the interior work by which we are brought to an ever-increasing fullness of life.
