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This post was written by Jessica Castillo, creator of the Lent program Missio Parata and edited by Amy Brooks.
How to Be Transformed This Lent
Lent is sometimes treated like the Catholic New Year..because similar to New Year’s, it’s a time when we set goals and resolutions for things we’d like to change in our lives that will–hopefully– at the end of Lent lead to us having a deeper union with Christ.
But what separates a truly transformative Lent from one that may leave you a few pounds lighter…but otherwise unchanged?
3 Steps to Experience a Lent that Truly Transforms You:
- Having a solid (i.e. prayerfully discerned) Lenten Plan for exactly what you want to do
- Strategically planning for how you’ll stick with your plan
- PRACTICE YOUR PLAN FOR WHEN YOU’RE TEMPTED TO GIVE UP OR GIVE IN!
Easy enough, right?
Maybe…but similarly to when we set New Year’s Resolutions, we may find it difficult to stick with our Lenten Plan.
In this article, I’m going to dive in a little bit on the reasons why this happens, but more importantly, the practical strategies that you can apply so that this can be the year that you stick with your Lenten Plan–and therefore reach the end of Lent truly transformed.
What Does God Want for You This Lent?
As we read in the Ash Wednesday readings, God wants us to rend our hearts and not our garments.
What God is interested in is not a “white-knuckle” sacrifice of everything that you enjoy and all pleasures, instead, what he wants is for you to recognize when you’re more attached to those earthly comforts that you are to him, and to gently wean you away from them.
God already knows what he wants you to do for Lent.
He knows you in and out, better than anyone, and he already knows what you need to detach from to draw closer to him, and what you can do to have the most fruitful Lent possible.
So the very first step is to just approach God with an open heart. Put down any preconceived ideas of what you could or should do for Lent and try to be radically open to whatever he might be calling you to do. And then just listen.
How to Create Your Lenten Plan
So now that you’ve asked God what he wants you to do and taken some time to listen, it can be helpful to apply a little structure to your plan.
A great place to start is with the 3 pillars of Lent that the Church gives us, which are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
It can be helpful to discern what you might do in each of those areas.
Another strategy is to think about what sins you most frequently take to confession, and use that as a basis for what you choose to do during Lent.
For instance, if you are often confessing that you’re angry with your family or yelling at your kids, maybe your plan for Lent is to work on identifying your triggers for when you want to yell and planning a way to speak more kindly to your kids.
And finally, there are a lot of really good Lenten Challenges going on right now from different Catholics in the online space or on prayer apps, and maybe you’re drawn this Lent to one of those challenges.
I’m currently running the Free Missio Parata Lenten Challenge, which combines disciplined physical practices (sleep, diet, and exercise) with deep prayer (the Rosary and lectio divina). You can find out more about that challenge HERE.
Whatever you discern is the right plan for you, once you have the overall Lenten Plan, it’s time to go a step deeper with even more planning.
Don’t Rely on Motivation and Willpower
This is an exciting time for Catholics.
We look forward to Lent because we’re longing for deeper union with God, we’re longing for some kind of transformation, we’re longing to cast off every shackle of sin that clings to us and run the race that lies before us.
And so we tend to enter Lent with a lot of enthusiasm.
Maybe we’ve really been looking forward to Lent because we have big goals for what we hope to accomplish during Lent and we’ve been looking forward to cutting ties with a favorite vice.
There’s a sense during Lent that we really can do hard things because we’re doing them with and for God.
And all of this is so good.
The problem is…that we’re fallen human creatures and we tend to be extremely fickle.
Even when we desperately want to change, it can be hard for us to stick with any kind of resolution or goal.
This is why so many of us can find that we start Lent with a lot of steam and enthusiasm and a complete plan for all the things we’re going to give up, or the prayer practices that we’re going to take on…
Only to find that midway through Lent most of our plan has gone out the window.
We might even make it to Good Friday without being able to quite remember what your plan even was in the first place–or maybe even worse, we feel a lot of guilt and shame for what we couldn’t do or should’ve done.
So how can you avoid this?
You guessed it: more planning!
- This post is the second blog post in our Lent series this year, check out the first The Simplest and Most Effective Way to Embrace Lent this Year
Planning to Manage Your Thoughts and Emotions
The first step here is to prepare in advance for the thoughts and emotions that will likely come up for you while you’re embarking on your plan.
You can expect and plan for the fact that, just like with New Year’s Resolutions, the shiny new plan you make is going to start feeling like a drag and your enthusiasm is going to wane.
You might start having thoughts like:
“Why am I even doing this?”
“This is too hard for me.”
“I can’t do this.”
Or, if you find that you haven’t been able to perfectly stick with your Lenten plan, you may be thinking:
“What’s the point?”
“Well, I’ve already messed up, so I might as well give up now.”
“Maybe I’ll just do some of the things.”
The thing is: these are all very normal human reactions to trying to make any kind of change in our lives, even if the change is ultimately for the better.
As humans, we love homeostasis, or for things to stay roughly the same (whether we recognize it or not).
This is a very physical process happening in your body: you’ve decided to give up something that you perceive as good, be it sugar, alcohol, coffee, or anything else, and your body is now not getting the dopamine hit that that good thing usually gives you.
But this is what separates us from animals because we can use our intellects and wills as humans to consciously decide to give up something good to pursue something even better.
In this case, the thing that you’re giving up for Lent isn’t really the sacrifice…the sacrifice that you are making is your attachment to the good thing. By detaching from that earthly thing, you’re freeing yourself up to attach more fully to God.
But it’s very uncomfortable on a human level!
You might even feel like your body is screaming at you to just have a cookie or a cup of coffee, or whatever you’re abstaining from.
But here’s the cool thing: when you know that this is going to happen…you can expect it and prepare for it.
It’s a little like Jesus said in the gospel about how if the owner of the house knew the hour the thief was going to come, he wouldn’t let his house be broken into.
Similarly, when you know that your body is going to experience some dopamine withdrawals, you can be ready to combat them and not let them derail you.
So your job is to come up with a plan for recognizing what’s happening in your body, and let yourself experience this discomfort…knowing that it isn’t going to last. It really will pass and your body will establish a new homeostasis (and you may find that you’re a million times better off without sugar after all.)
Don’t Rely on Yourself
When you start to experience those dopamine withdrawals, it is very easy to “white-knuckle” your way through your resolutions or to rely too much on yourself to resist the temptation. This is often called “un-Godly Self-Reliance”.
The problem with relying solely on your own willpower to keep your Lenten plan is that, ultimately, it’s an exercise in vanity.
Lent isn’t about you.
Remember: God wants your heart. Not your coffee. Not your chocolate. Not your booze. Your heart.
What will come is a moment of choice: when you’re feeling all the discomfort of giving up something good, and you’re tempted to relieve that discomfort either by quitting completely, just caving a bit, or tweaking your plans…
And you now have a choice to rely on yourself and your willpower to get through (which is really hard and often fails) or you can rely on God and his strength in this moment.
You can unite your discomfort and suffering to Christ’s human suffering and, while you do still make an act of the will, it doesn’t have so much to do with avoiding the sugar or the alcohol.
It’s saying to God, “Yes, I accept this discomfort out of love for you. Lord, all things are possible for you, please give me the grace I most need to resist this temptation.”
You can see how one path leads you further away from God and one path keeps you tucked in close, nestled right into the bosom of your loving Father.
Join our Facebook group Catholic Talk and Inspiration! We’ll be cheering you on this Lent with some “Lent Mini-Talks”!!
Now for the Purely Practical Part
The next part of planning deals with the purely practical. How are you actually going to do what you set out to do this Lent?
One really good question to ask yourself here is, “Why am I not already doing this?” So for instance, if your plan for Lent is to pray the daily rosary, it can be a really good starting place to ask why you aren’t already.
And I don’t mean that question to invite shame or make you feel bad, it’s just to get curious about what obstacles are preventing you right now from doing this thing, so you can make a plan to overcome them.
For instance, right now you may not be consistently praying the rosary because you don’t have a time slot for it in your schedule. Or maybe you don’t know how. Or maybe you forget to do it. Or maybe you want to do it as a family and you can’t get your kids on board.
Whatever the reasons, it’s time to get curious about them and start thinking creatively and strategically about how you can overcome those challenges.
What you’ll want to do here is think of as many obstacles or challenges as you can to your Lenten plan, and then for every challenge think about how you could mitigate or eliminate it.
For instance, if you’re giving up sugar and you know that you’ve got a stash of cookies in the pantry that’s going to be super tempting to you…go and throw those cookies away or give them away while you’re willpower is still high!
If you know that you’re going to be going out to a work social and everyone tends to be drinking at those, but you’ve given up alcohol, maybe you plan in advance to order a club soda and lime.
So just think through obstacles and contingencies.
And then let yourself think creatively and strategically, keeping in mind that the ultimate goal of Lent is not just to do something hard so that you can say you did something hard, but to draw you closer to God.
A Quick Recap
1. Good planning is the key to sticking with your Lenten Plan.
2. When making a Lenten plan, be sure to involve God who already knows what he wants you to do.
3. Expect to face discomfort and negative emotions and plan to turn to God in his strength in those moments.
4. And finally, use your intellect and will on a really practical level to help identify obstacles and how you will overcome them.
Also, if you’re looking to do something for Lent this year that is focused on helping you become a fit instrument to accomplish the mission that God has given you, consider joining me in my Missio Parata Lenten Challenge.
It is not too late to start, and one big benefit of joining the challenge is that you won’t be doing it alone. We have a dedicated Facebook group of really supportive people going through the challenge with you and you’ll also have free weekly training and coaching calls with me to support you along the way.
The way to join the Missio Parata Lenten Challenge is to go to athrivingcatholic.com/lent
If this is something that you feel God is calling you to do this Lent, I’d love to have you join me in the challenge.
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