The Lenten season is a wonderful testament to God’s mercy. This is especially true for citizens of the materially rich but spiritually impoverished West. Skipping a few meals won’t hurt us. Almost all of us get our calories — and to spare. Spiritually, though, our diets are pretty lean these days. Lent is just what the doctors (of the Church) ordered.

Lent is a season for reflecting on our poverty and brokenness. In periods of deep unhappiness, we Americans may sometimes feel ashamed, because we know that we are deeply blessed. We enjoy incredible security and abundance and freedoms that people around the world envy. Despite our great abundance, however, we still suffer.

It isn’t wrong to acknowledge this, because our suffering is more than the petulant irritation of spoiled children. It is a testament to the reality that man cannot live on bread alone.

Stephen Webb recently wrote a beautiful piece on depression and the agony that depressed persons feel when God seems unfathomably distant. He notes, among other things, that the depressed often suffer in silence because they feel weak or ungrateful in their misery.

Even while they cope with feelings of emptiness and loss, they are simultaneously assailed by guilt over the lack of Christian joy. Spiritual drought is that much more of a trial, insofar as it feels like a moral failure.

Although there is certainly a moral component to depression, it is far too simple to see it as moral failure. It’s often the case that God feels especially distant when our life’s path has become unclear. A lost job, a painful death or the failure of some major life project can leave us devoid of any sense of purpose. Friends assure us that “God still has a plan for you!” We want to believe it. With no clear sense of what that plan might look like, it can be hard to find a break in the gloom.

Is it wrong to feel downcast when we know that Christ has risen for us? Not necessarily. We all need meaningful activity to make earthly life bearable. Most human beings throughout history have found that meaning especially in two things: faith and family.

The satisfaction of honest labor adds meaning for some, and food, music, art and nature can certainly ornament life in a wonderful way. But faith and family have been the bedrock for most. It is not good for man to be alone, and every person needs to believe that his or her life is going somewhere. Family keeps us from being alone, and faith tells us where our lives could be going.

Both faith and family have declined in the modern world, which surely tells us something about the frenzied dissatisfaction that we see in our political realm, despite our material comfort. It explains why addiction (to drugs, pornography or blaring media) is rampant. It explains why suicide rates are rising. Without God, and without loved ones surrounding us, how is life worth living? It’s easy to understand why so many are desperate to escape from their internal emptiness.

Even those of us who try to embrace faith and family may not truly be spared from the ravages of the modern world. We still suffer, as our good-faith efforts to live well are continually stymied and frustrated. The world tears at our families and mocks our efforts at faithfulness, gleefully exposing our every fault.

Against this backdrop, the words of Ash Wednesday are a welcome medicine. Remember that you are dust. God knows our weaknesses, sees our shortcomings and does not despise us. We needn’t hide our suffering from the Lord.

Non-Catholics sometimes find it difficult to understand why we should volunteer to participate in a season of sadness. Why does our loving God want us to suffer? Shouldn’t faith be joyful? In a world obsessed with winning, dominating and distinguishing ourselves at any cost, a season of penance can be hard to understand.

That is precisely why it is such a great mercy. The world tells us that it is unacceptable to be imperfect and that any flaw might mean rejection or failure. We are taught to mask our insecurities, or, better still, to try to leverage them into sources of power.

Lent invites us to address our weaknesses in a different way. We can bring them before God and acknowledge them honestly. Instead of hiding, expose. No mask or deception will be effective before our all-seeing God. Miraculously, we find that, despite our manifest failings, we are still accepted. Our faults have not spoiled our chance with the most ardent of lovers.

This searing honesty is the only way to avoid being defined by our sin and dominated by our weakness. God forgives without excusing, and the Church accepts us in our weakness, while continually urging us to strive for greater virtue and love. Letting go of the artifice and the grasping anger, we can look forward to that coming day when, with God’s help, we will have become our better selves.

Like most people, I always count off the weeks until Easter with eager anticipation. Late winter is always a hard time in Minnesota. At Christmastime, winter seemed beautiful, but now everything just seems grimy. I’m tired of feeling cold. Weather, liturgical seasons, personal struggles and world affairs always seem to combine at this time of year to create a pervasive gloom. Part of me just wants it to end as soon as possible, and I find myself daydreaming about singing birds, flowering trees and white sand beaches on distant tropical shores.

I’m weak. The tiniest bit of suffering sends me scrambling for relief. But I still give thanks for the mercy of Lent. It is a time for mourning our brokenness and enabling ourselves to heal. It is a time for trading a small amount of earthly bread for a generous helping of the heavenly kind.

At this time of year, we are reminded that God understands our weakness and our suffering. Our failures here below are real, and rightly bring us sorrow, frustration and shame. But they are not the ultimate failure. However bleak the present moment may seem, the door is still open, and the day of our salvation is still at hand.

Rachel Lu, Ph.D., teaches philosophy at the

University of St. Thomas in

St. Paul, Minnesota.