Before becoming a theist and eventually converting to Catholicism 17 years ago, I, like most self-respecting secular humanists, snickered at the practice of “giving something up for Lent.” Like all things religious, and in particular all things Catholic, the idea of offering sacrifices to a sky god seemed like prescientific hocus-pocus.
Of course, I had no idea what Catholics meant by the word “sacrifice” nor what they meant by the word “God.” But, in time, I learned that “giving something up for Lent” was not about securing gifts but about cultivating a deeper relationship with the giver of all gifts. It is a spiritual practice, not a spiritual magic trick.
Properly understood, the tradition of Lent has never been more relevant than it is today. The human experience is now marked by the ceaseless pursuit for satiety. America, in particular, stuffs itself full with food, drugs, pornography, and endless information — anything to distract from the resounding silence at the foundation of reality. Our culture is dehumanizing in so many ways but in this way most of all. It is ordered so as to prevent communion with God in the silence of our hearts.
The ceaseless pursuit of satiety has two principal effects. The first is that we forget our true nature. The identity crisis that has plagued Western civilization this century is directly related to our consumption habits. By blocking out the voice of God with pleasure and things, we lose the basis for our inherent worth. This makes it easy to commodify one another and even ourselves — to see people as items to be consumed and discarded when convenient.
The second is that we waste unfathomable quantities of natural resources. Should humanity survive this era of decadence, future generations will regard our waste statistics with horror.
Here’s a truly jaw-dropping statistic: America wastes 149 billion meals per year, which comes to $444 billion worth of food. For a nation that has suffered from the rising costs of groceries in recent years, it is amazing that this almost never enters into the discussion.
Similarly, the United States wastes a truly staggering amount of energy. America fails to capture a full two-thirds of the energy it produces each year. Our commercial buildings waste roughly 30% of the energy they use, and household energy waste totals in the billions annually.
As the Middle East continues to spiral into chaos, the national discussion about energy costs will intensify. But if the past is any indication, it will center almost exclusively on the means of production and not on our consumption habits. Presumably, this is because our cultural norms are so distorted that mere mention of the notion of sacrifice, shared or individual, is now beyond the pale. The ceaseless pursuit of satiety is not to be tampered with.
Though his papacy has done much to alienate conservative Catholics in the U.S., Pope Francis has laudably connected the dots between the devaluation of human life, particularly the unborn and the elderly, and the modern tendency toward wasteful consumption. By labeling the phenomenon “throwaway culture,” the pontiff has effectively linked the conservative priority of defending life with the liberal priority of defending nature. His emphasis on the deeper cultural sickness that causes so much waste is particularly apt — indeed, the West cannot tinker or innovate its way out of its natural resource dilemma in the long term, nor can it compromise on the sanctity of life. A vast cultural renewal is required to tackle problems of this magnitude.
Lent provides an opportune occasion to recondition ourselves away from the deleterious reflex toward immediate gratification, which paradoxically leaves us emptier and less satisfied with every bite and click. Only when we consciously deny ourselves immediate pleasure do we encounter the truth: that life itself is a gratuitous gift from a creator who loves us madly and desires our love so desperately that he sacrificed himself for our sake.
Only then can we live in harmony with creation, including one another, and prosper as God intended.
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Peter Laffin is a contributor at the Washington Examiner. His work has also appeared in RealClearPolitics, the Catholic Thing, and the National Catholic Register.
