Q02 - Why Lent?
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Welcome to this Corbono Q &A session. Today, we're going to talk about Lent, specifically the Lent you didn't plan. Oftentimes, we tend to look at Lent as a period of time during which we have to give up stuff. But the truth of the matter is that Lent is the church's covenantal season to grow in grace.
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And in that season, God initiates specific transformations. And that's what we need to discover. So hopefully you'll go with me on a short journey to better understand the purpose of Lent. And I hope in the end, you'll have a more peaceful relationship with the season and discover truly the Christmas that is hidden in Lent. So let's begin. Usually, the problem with Lent is that it devolves into spiritual dieting.
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Now, there's nothing specifically wrong in giving up food. But if you really think about the culture we live in, you'd notice that overall food functions almost as a curse. Don't eat ice cream. You'd get diabetes. Don't eat fat. You'd get cholesterol. Don't drink diet soda. You'll get cancer. Don't drink milk. You'll sprout a second head. That sort of thing.
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we have a lot of restrictions around food as concern health, concerning health, which is a good thing. However, it creates a sort of siege mentality. So when we get to Lent, we're already in a sort of a hostage negotiation phase of figuring out what we're to let go and what we're going to keep. And if you notice, it's very much a bottom-up approach to Lent. It's like we look at the landscape, we decide what to give,
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We might also decide about almsgiving and about acts of mercy, and these deserve their own Q &A session. But bottom line, we're basically defining what we are going to do, and then we're sort of going to the Lord. And we're also defining these things without really understanding the purpose. So that bottom-up approach usually ends up robbing us from
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the wonderful gift that is in inlet. And that's what I'd like to be sort of explaining to you in the rest of this session.
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Let's think of it slightly differently. Let's think of it from the covenantal framework standpoint. In a covenant, you have a strong party and you have a weak party. The strong party is the one who basically decides the rules of the games and it's up to the weak party to sort of follow or not.
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We don't typically treat Lent this way. We think it's all on us to decide what we need to do, not do, and then maybe we can go to the Lord. Well, let's put Lent back into this framework and see what happens. First of all, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us in paragraph 1430, Jesus calls us to conversion. And he doesn't aim first at outward works. uh
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but at the conversion of the heart. So the outward works flow from a converted heart. And also in paragraph 2010, the catechism reminds us that the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace. And just as Our Lady, the wedding feast of Cana, told the servants, whatever he tells you, so that she tell us now, inland, do whatever he tells you. So what does that mean?
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Lent is a period of intensified receptivity. It's a sort of a top-down approach. We're going to go to the Lord first and then when we go to the Lord we're going to listen to him first and then figure out what we're going to do.
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So in uh paragraph 1434, the Catechism reminds us that Lent is an intense moment of penitential practice. Why is it an intense moment? Because of all the graces you receive. You see, one of the problems or the trap that we fall into when we think immediately about the sort of food we're going to give up or some of the practices we're going to give up is that we are forgetting what we're going to receive. In the spiritual,
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realm as it is in the physical realm on earth, there is no void. You take stuff out, food, practices, things you do, you're creating a void, that void will be filled by grace. So instead of having a negative approach, a negative moral approach to Lent, where you're basically saying, I'm not going to do this, I'm not going to eat that, I'm going to stop doing this. So notice the no, no, no.
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We should start with a positive moral approach. I want to gain these virtues. I want to grow in holiness. I want to get closer to the Lord. That is the true purpose of Lent. These other things are means for that end. They're means in the sense that by removing them, we show the Lord that we are serious and we give Him the occasion to fill us with grace. They're not a means in the sense that they can accomplish
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holiness or they can accomplish growth and virtue. They don't. It is the grace of God that does it. But by removing them, if you will, you're cleaning the clutter, you're taking all that stuff out, which is great, and we have to do that. But don't forget the Christmas tree sitting in the corner and the gift under that tree ready for you.
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That is the sort governmental approach to Lent. You basically take the Samuel posture. Samuel.
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In the book of Samuel chapter 3 verse 10 said, Speak Lord for thy servant hears. Speak Lord thy servant hears. That is the proper approach to Lent. Speak Lord thy servant hears. So in practice, what does that mean?
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You have to start by believing that in LEND the gain exceeds the loss. You have to move away from the kind of lose, loser's mentality of LEND where I'm sort of, you know, giving up that stuff and I'm going to suffer through it, but I really don't understand why I'm doing it. You have to move away from that mentality to begin with your disposition and then orient yourself to one where
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Lent is a wonderful season given to us by the church. We do not make up Lent. The church gives us this season for the purpose of filling us with special graces to help us overcome vices and grow in virtue.
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So, St. Irenaeus reminds us that the glory of God is man fully alive. The glory of God is man fully alive, not man moping around because he's hungry. Right? So then, in order for you to figure out what is it that God wants of you in this season of Lent, in order for you to be able to productively, fruitfully say, speak Lord for thy servant hears,
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You should have at least an idea of the dominant vices in your life.
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So St. John Cassian reminds us that we should target the most troublesome passion. The word passion in classic term really refers to vices, the things that we do and we would rather not do. So examples of vices would be pride, impatience, sloth, gossip, envy, resentment, and on and on. So if you don't know anything about vices and virtues, I encourage you to just Google them out.
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I have series also on Corbono that you can find out where I address these things about virtues and vices, but learn the language of virtuous and vices so you can identify the areas in life where you need to change. And then once you identify a vice that you know is prominent in your life, let's say in patience, then practice the opposite virtue. So what is the opposite of impatience? Gentleness. If I said patience,
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It doesn't really truly reflect what you should, what changes in your behavior. Just you have to be gentle, specifically when you don't feel like being gentle. Right? So you're on the highway and somebody cuts you off and then they're driving 30 miles slower than you are and patience bubbles up in you. Gentleness would be to act with compassion towards this person and
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That would be where you're practicing this virtue. obviously, this you have to do or you should be doing all year round. All year round, you're trying to really fight against the vices. Because at the end of the day, you go to mass, you say rosary, say all these prayers, and these give you what? The grace, the energy, the spiritual energy to be able to do stuff. It's like you're filling your tank with spiritual energy. But if you don't work against your vices, if you're not growing in virtue,
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You're like a guy who filled up a tank sitting in a car going nowhere. So you should be working on these virtues all year round. But in Lent, there's something extraordinary that happens, which is really beautiful. And that is...
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um the unexpected gift. Now, before I get there, I do want to remind you that in order to work against these vices in Lent, you have to really work on these three pillars that the Church enjoins us to work on. The fasting, which disciplines your appetite, and it doesn't just discipline your desire for food, it teaches you a discipline of all the appetite. So, impatience is an appetite.
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It's the appetite to have something done, which is wonderful, but it can be in excess and then it can harm others. So fasting helps you to discipline the appetite. If you notice, it's a virtue. It's a form of learning to act virtuously. Prayer aligns the will. Prayer, the powerful thing about prayer is it aligns your will to the will of God. So you essentially start to trend to want to do the right thing. And almsgiving purifies your love, makes you
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truly love sacrificially. So when you do these things, you're effectively working against these vices. Now, you should, like I said, you can do that all year round, but in Lent there is something really extraordinary that happens, which is figuring out what is it that God wants you to do? Which area he really wants to bless you in Lent? It's like almost an accelerator, if you will. It's like a
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It's uh powering up the work of virtue that you're doing. That's what Lent does. That's the beautiful thing about it. So there is therefore this sort of unexpected gift which is given to you in Lent. And the way to find it is that you've identified the vices, the prominent ones, you start working on them, and you see if it takes. You see if suddenly you're making progress in these areas of your life that
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was very difficult outside of Lent. If that's the case, the Lord is basically nudging you, saying, yeah, I really want you to work on this. You know, some of you may have heard me say that if you want to develop a devotion to your garden angel, one of the easiest and best way to do it is simply when you're driving and going somewhere, before you get there, ask your garden angel to find you a place to park. And um see what happens.
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See how he starts to help you. The wonderful thing about this is that you get a tangible sign of his presence and you start to develop a true relationship, devoted relationship to God and angel. When in many ways in Lent there is a similar thing that happened where you're sort of going to the Lord saying, Lord speak, I'm listening. Here are the vices, here are the things that I think I should be working on. Please help me understand what your will is. What is it that you really want me to work on during this blessed season of Lent?
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And for me to find that out, I'm going to try. If I'm impatient, I'm gonna try to be gentle. If I am lazy, I'm gonna try to get up earlier in the morning or do my bed. You pick small tasks, small tasks, and you use them to better understand the flow of grace in your life during that season. Remember, this is not about you doing stuff. This is not a... um
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Lent is not a personal improvement plan. Lent is the discovery of special graces that God wants to give you in order to sanctify you. But sometimes, it just so happens that God wants to go in a very different way. And I'll give you an example that happened to me during this Lent. um I have a dysregulated circadian cycle. The circadian cycle is something that is responsible for
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telling you when you need to go to sleep and when you need to get up. And my case is dysregulated, which means I don't necessarily have proper hours, or I tend to prefer to sleep during the day instead of during the night. And as a result, one of the consequences of this sort dysregulated circadian cycle is going to daily mass is extremely hard. I mean, you don't have a lot of parishes that have masses at 2 a.m. Eh, not my, not good anyway.
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So it's very difficult for people in my situation, I'm not the only one, to sort of fit into normal regular life. Even this whole fasting thing becomes very complicated because you're up all night one day, you're up for a part of the night, you're slept through the night the third day, you slept three hours one day, you slept 12 the second. It becomes very difficult to understand.
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where does fasting begin, when does it end? So it's a complicated situation that you can end up with given this sort of the dysregulated circadian cycle. And if you told me that I could essentially go to bed every night at a regular hour, like around 10.30 p.m. and wake up at 7 a.m. in the morning or 6 a.m. and then be able to go to mass, every now and would have laughed at you. It was just as impossible for me to do. And yet, and then so this Lent, I went to the Lord, I know my...
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vices, I know which ones I need to work on. Same question, trying to figure out what I'm supposed to work on and lo and behold, during Lent, I'm going to bed at 10.30. Sleeping through the night isn't perfect. I'm like a Christmas tree, but nevertheless, it's through the night. I'm getting up early in the morning and I'm almost able to go to Mass every day. Well, here you go. That was the gift under the tree. That's what he wanted me to do for this Lent. So we have this
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disposition to listen to what the Lord is asking us to do. We ask Him. We try things. We find out. And we keep our eyes focused on the graces that we're to receive, more so than on the things we're giving up. And in the end, when you sort of put it all together,
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you realize that the graces far outweigh whatever sacrifices you're giving.
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And sometimes, sometimes you might do all this and nothing pans out. There is no progress in your fight for any against any devices and there's no growth in virtue. And in that case, you have to understand that what God wants you to really struggle with is humility and abandonment to his will, which are also wonderful races. So nothing is lost. Whether you succeed or not, whether you feel the growth or not, nothing is lost. Races are there. And if you
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are aligning yourself to do his will, listen to his voice, be rest assured, be certain that graces were given and they were fruitful. um Remember, as the Catechism teaches us in paragraph 2001, the preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. You cannot prepare yourself to receive grace without grace. You're corresponding to it, you're doing his will, you're making him happy. That's how that counts. So,
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Think of fasting as you go into the desert and the desert is not is not deprivation. It's preparation. It's preparing yourself to receive his graces. In the book of Joel chapter two, verse 12, the Lord tells us, return to me with all your heart and the Lenten plan that you ah that you receive.
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may not be the one you were hoping for or the one you thought about, but it may be the one you need. So, always keep in mind that there is a hidden Christmas tree in Lent that God wished to give to you provided you listen to him. God bless you and I hope you have a wonderful blessed Lent and you'll be able to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord with joy. Bye bye.
