When St. Joseph taught Jesus to be a carpenter, he no doubt emphasized tools and how to use them. In the first century, carpenters used saws, hammers, planes, measuring instruments and the like to make furniture, ploughs, yokes and more.
As important as the tools were, they were not the goal. Rather, they were a means to a bigger goal. Tools used properly helped produce the fruits of their hard labor — tables, chairs, agricultural implements, roofs, even support structures for buildings.
The Church through sacred scripture gives us three primary tools for Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. In our Lenten journeys, I wonder if we sometimes put too much emphasis on those tools of the season and not enough emphasis on what they are intended to produce, which is a closer relationship with the Lord Jesus.
Lent is ultimately about becoming better friends with Jesus and becoming more like Jesus. It’s about sensing his presence in our lives and living as he calls us to. It’s about preparing for the great gift of the Resurrection, both that we celebrate at Easter and the hope that we will also live forever with Jesus in heaven.
Great tools are great gifts. I’m trying to use the tools of Lent as best I can while keeping in mind the end goal of getting closer to God. I may be swinging a hammer at a piece of wood, but I’m still visualizing the chair that will ultimately emerge and the service it will provide.
We endeavor to pray more during Lent, which is great. We may even set goals to devote a certain amount of time to Jesus each day or week — also great. Whatever time we choose, whatever prayers we say, whatever spiritual exercises we use, they are all intended to help us meet Jesus in those moments.
We fast during Lent, and many of us give something up. It might be food we particularly enjoy, like chocolate, dessert or snacks. We might give up soft drinks or alcohol. All good. Whatever fast we choose, we want to do more than check it off the list at the end of the day. We want our sacrifice to remind us of Jesus’ sacrifice for us. We want that little pang of hunger to remind us that our ultimate hunger is for Jesus and our desire to be closer to him during this holy season.
We give alms during Lent, meaning acts of charity and donations for the poor. I would again suggest giving to the archdiocese’s Annual Appeal as great Lenten sacrifice. Jesus commands us to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked and more (Matthew 25).
The Lord also says quite clearly that by taking care of his least brothers and sisters, we are in fact taking care of him. We meet Jesus in the poor, and we hope the poor meet Jesus in us. We should remember this in our acts of charity or when making financial gifts. We didn’t just make a donation or do something nice. We met Jesus!
That’s the goal of Lent. It’s the goal of our entire spiritual journey.
Let’s make our relationship with Jesus the “source and summit” of all we do during the remaining weeks of Lent. May we pick up our tools of prayer, fasting and almsgiving and use them well, confident that our relationship with the Lord God will grow, strengthen and mature.
May we put our spiritual tools to good use these last weeks of Lent confident that Jesus will use them to help shape us into who God created us to be. And may we come to celebrate Easter closer to the Lord and enjoy his company in ways we never have before.
(Msgr. John Enzler serves as the mission advocate of Catholic Charities of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and is a chaplain at his alma mater, St. John’s College High School in Washington. He writes the Faith in Action column for the archdiocese’s Catholic Standard and Spanish-language El Pregonero newspapers and websites.)
