Tomorrow (2/22/23) marks the start of Lent for Catholics around the world. This year, like any other year, Lenten observers are faced with the challenge of what to sacrifice or what to do extra for the coming month and a half. In mentally working through what change to make, I’ve come to a few conclusions.

My wife and I have discussed what we will do to observe Lent and often we lament the fact that we often fall back on a Catholic standard of “no sweets”. I will admit that such an observance is not the most creative of ideas, which often makes us feel like it is not a good idea. After mulling this thought over in my mind, I think giving up sweets during Lent is a good idea…if you regularly eat sweets.

Any change that you can make to your life that is going to improve your state and takes a moderate degree of discipline speaks to me as making a real sacrifice for the better. With the example of sweets, I and many people find that eating them brings comfort and joy, is often a mindless activity, and does not improve our overall health. 

None of us are eating sweets for sustenance. We’re eating sweets for joy and disregard to our overall health. Look at the graphic below by the National Institute of Health.  The darker the map, the more diabetes. As you can see, the picture of the USA gets darker as you get progress toward 2030.

Taking sweets out of your diet during Lent improves who you are health wise, it makes you more aware of what you consume, what is important, and how you can conquer your fleeting cravings. These are all great benefits and can be used as a model to apply to countless other areas in your life. Taking the lessons learned and experienced from abstaining from sweets during Lent and then applying them to other areas in life is not a trivial pursuit.  

God gave us all a body with a tremendous amount of potential. Building our mental resistance muscles to conquer cravings for sweets and temporarily expunging them from our diet demonstrates to us and others that we can control our cravings and achieve success in the face of difficulty. Carrying our cross, even if it is something we think is as trivial as giving up sweets, does speak to our faith and our becoming a better version of ourselves.

Part of Lent for me will be the absence of sweets and in that I find a lot of meaning and faith.