The first Lent that was really meaningful for me was when I spent my freshman year in the seminary…which in turn was at a monastery…in the middle of nowhere…with 3 televisions for 120 people…

Needless to say, I didn’t watch television much my freshman year.  I had been virtually addicted to television sitcoms in my high school years, so it was a drastic change.  When I went home for Christmas, I realized that I had grown an intense distaste for television.  I realized that Everybody Loves Raymond is a half-hour of a family bicker amongst themselves.  We watch this garbage?  Really?

Anyway (getting to the point), by the time Lent rolled around, I had been more or less detoxed from the secular culture.  Time at the seminary was easy and light.  Like you in your Lenten story, I had no job and no income (other than very minimal stipends).  I did, of course, have a course of study.  Over Christmas I had a major sinus reconstructive surgery (ouch) which resulted in frequent nosebleeds and kept me from eating anything substantial for a while (food is not appetizing when all you smell all day is your own rotting and healing flesh).  The surgery happened not long before Lent.  Consequently, between Christmas and Easter, I lost 50 lbs. and spent much of my time financially broke, in pain with physical ailments, blood loss, and an odoriferous awareness of my own mortality.  I learned to rely on God.  I was the happiest I’d been in my life.  I experienced, like you, a taste of that upside-down worldview Chesterton described of St. Francis of Assisi. That whole year had purged me of my comforts, taught me what was truly necessary, given me an inclination toward recollection.  The silent retreats gave me solace.

I left the seminary, though, feeling called to marriage, and slowly was re-introduced to the world.  It’s been a mild sort of roller coaster, back and forth between fervor and a sort of lukewarmness.  I guess that’s to be expected.  Still, that time gave me a vision of what God could make of me, and I long to find the same peace now in my family life.  The constant temptation, though, is to withdraw and be a monk in my own home, but that just won’t do.

Thank you, Mark, for your Lenten testimony.  It’s rekindled something in my recalling all this.  Question for you: is there a spiritually safe way to balance family life with this kind of detachment from the world?

I’m an 86 year-old cradle Catholic who equates Lent with Spring housecleaning.  I hate housecleaning but I do not hate Lent…year after year I say to myself “now what do I need to do to become more Christlike, to be more humble, to be less attached to the world?”  Each year I think I make a little progress pulling off the facade that I think I need to accommodate to the world around me.  When another year comes around I find I still have some of those layers I thought I removed last year. That causes me to be grateful for the annual repetition of Lenten self examination.
  To be more Christlike is an everlasting task of knowing who Jesus is, knowing what He expects of me, seeing Him in others, and deepening my trust in His love and salvation. I would like to permanently retreat to a quiet place where I could block out every world distraction.  Knowing that I have only a few more years here I almost wish that I could hasten my transition to the house of the Lord. And that pulls me back to the realization that I may not be ready for such a sanctifying place…or am I being to hard on myself, needing to punish myself for the dark shadows that obscure the holy light that He freely gives me every day.  If I wait to be worthy of His love and gifts then I’ll wait in vain for none of us is “worthy”...He loves and saves me just as I am, thanks be to God.

I used to think Lent was the dreariest time of the year, but I think that was because I gave up chocolate or an extra hour of TV more in petulance than in penitence. I love Lent now because through self-denial I am finally beginning to see God, not as a taskmaster, but as a loving father guiding the steps of His child.

Mrs. Beazly, God is a loving Father and we’ll all in this together…it’s a Family Affair…