Lent is coming and I am not sure how my doughnuts fit into this season of penitence and fasting. Will giving up doughnuts help with feeling or expressing humble sorrow for my sins and offenses? Baking fills my heart with profound joy and I experience a form of holiness as I create gifts for others. I have been set apart for God in this unique role as a mother and gorgeous food is part of my call to a holy life, it isn't everyone's, but it is mine.
Of course, to fast: abstain from food, eat sparingly or abstain from some food, this is another matter entirely. And yet I wonder. Will not eating my pastries help make me more penitent? What if I fasted from what really wrecks my heart? If I struggle with gluttony or my eating and drinking is driven by avoiding emotions, stuffing them away with a dozen cookies, maybe a fast of desserts is in order.
But what if the fast I am called to is avoiding sin not chocolate? What if I need to give up inner vices like anger, pride, selfishness, self-pity, envy or jealousy instead of wine or ice cream? What if Lent were an invitation to a table of grace filled with good things: light, mercy, hope, joy, peace and holiness.
Could Lent create room in our souls for God?
Medicine from Sacred Writings:
"If we practice a mere abstinence from meats, when the forty days are past, the fast is over too. But if we abstain from sins, this still remains, even when the fast has gone by, and will be from this time a continual advantage to us."
John Chrysostom Fourth Century
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