Lent is a time to look at the attachments of our hearts

February 22, 2024

By Pat Arensberg
For The Catholic Week
It’s that time of year again; my favorite and most dreaded time of the year. I don’t like the discipline of Lent. That is precisely why Lent is so important to me. Look, if Lent required me to give up things I am not attached to it would be easy. The fact is that my heart is attracted to many manmade things. These things are not evil, in fact they are usually good. The problem is that when my heart is filled with things God has made, it becomes difficult for me to love God the way I should. As an analogy, as parents, how often have we had to stop one of our children from eating a snack close to supper time? The snack is not necessarily bad, but if our children fill up on the snack, there will not be room for the nourishment that is planned for supper.
Lent is a time for us to take an honest look at the attachments and attractions of our hearts. We need to confront our comfort and realize that maybe being too comfortable might make us uninterested in prayer life. Maybe by never being hungry, we have become numb to the plight of people around us. The Church gives us this season to evaluate our hearts.
It is a season for us to give some things up, not for the sake of giving them up, but rather to remind us that we are not slaves to our desires. We are given the opportunity to pray for help in the process of detaching our hearts from manmade things. As we detach from things, we become more free to attach to the Creator who is goodness, truth and beauty. As we become more attached to His creation, we are more free to attach our hearts to Him. As we become more attached to God we begin to recognize Him in the people around us: the poor, people who impose on us, people who are lonely, people who are sick, etc. Maybe we can learn to see God through these people. Whatever we do for the least of our brethren we do it for the Lord.
— Pat Arensberg is the Director of the Office for Evangelization and Family Life. Email him at [email protected]