There is great joy to being a penitent

 This is for anyone who has had to endure the lukewarm homilies or RCIA classes as Lent approaches. They talk about not worrying about giving things up, about just adding things on — hey, those aren't mutually exclusive, by the way. Anyway, they reflect the spirit of the 1970's which is trying to make the Church easier and more fun. What they forget, or perhaps don't know, is that these are all to help you get closer to God. There's often little spoken of about that goal.

As a convert, I was intrigued by the rituals, the symbols, the sacraments, and, yes, the sacrifices. All contributed to the glories of the Catholic faith in one way or another. I never look forward to Lent but I take the proscribed penances seriously and I always give full consideration to what I'm "giving up." When Lent hits, I'm always surprised at how the struggles result in clearing away the cobwebs, opening the way to greater faith and a more personal experience of God.

All that is an introduction to why I loved this piece from Ed Condon at The Pillar. It ran a long time ago but is pertinent throughout Lent.

Happy first Friday of Lent friends, And enjoy your day of penance. I mean that.

Penance is one of those things which, at least in the West, has become an almost uniquely Catholic concept. The idea of a day of penance, let alone marking a whole season of it, strikes our wider society as maudlin, weird, and full of “Catholic guilt.”

And while it is neither maudlin nor weird, guilt — especially in the context of Lent — is a good thing, something to be embraced.

We all have a lot to feel guilty about, I am sure. Not just in the superficial sense of “I was so bad when I did that,” but in the much fuller sense of living in the light of an informed and well-formed conscience which is, or should be, our internal impulse to convert, to reorient ourselves to God, and to embrace the better nature we are called to have.

Penance, with its works of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, is uncomfortable, for sure. But it’s not meant to be miserable. Little actions, small offerings (or large ones) attune us to a right understanding of who we are, and who we need — God.

Modern social media psychobabble is full of talk about “mindfulness” and “being present,” which are themselves vacuous terms. To the extent they ever scratch the surface of human existence, they usually concentrate on “centering yourself in the here and now” to distract from the chasmous void at the heart of a human experience that knows not God, the unbearable weight of our imperfections without hope of redemption.

For us, Lent is the celebration of a great gift: the knowledge that our flaws, our jealousies, our petty vanity, and even what some might call our astonishing hubris, merit a great savior — one who is coming with power over the fear of death which rules and directs our baser natures.

Finding our place relative to that cosmic truth, and preparing to accept it, may not be a comfortable experience, but it can be joyful.

There is great joy to being a penitent when we are sure of His response, when each act of penance isn’t so much a plea for clemency before a wrathful master as a gesture of faith in the love of a Father whose nature we are striving to imitate.

In this sense, Lent is a time of relief, of rest, of remembering who we actually are, and for what purpose we were actually made — to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this world, and be happy with Him forever in the next, as we used to say.

I think the Meghan Markle crowd would call this “self-actualization,” or maybe “resting in your truth.” The Church calls it “conversion,” and it’s great.