It’s the first week of Lent, and people at church are asking each other, What are you giving up for Lent. It’s almost like asking, What did you get for Christmas. In local church communities, we are getting close to the point Christmas tragically reached long ago—self indulgent banality. I heard someone on television answer the question: “Sugar. I’m giving up sugar. It’s bad for me.” How does sacrificing something for your own sake become a sacrifice for Christ? Did Christ go into the wilderness for forty days without food because he wanted to go on a diet?

We long for, and work for, and we pray for a return to Christian culture, but we forget that such a return can also bring a return not just to the customs and traditions of our faith but to their trivialization as well. When that happens, in our longing for authenticity, we rebel against the very culture we created, historically giving rise to dissent, schisms, reformations and counter-reformations, wars, and ultimately – the end of faith and the rise of substitutional  ideologies of one kind or another.

I realize that’s a bit of a stretch—going from asking each other what we’re giving up for Lent to wars and the end of the faith—but, despite the hyperbole, it deserves some thought. A dear friend who brings me Holy Communion asked me what I’m giving up for Lent. I answered, “I’m not telling.” She was prepared for that share-and-compare bit we always do, so my response was a little annoying. I gave a thumbnail explanation: I’ve been exempt from fasting and abstinence for many years, but even before that, I was a bit wary of declaring that kind of sacrifice because I didn’t want to make promises to God that I didn’t trust myself to keep! And worse, it seemed to me that even if I were able to achieve the sacrifice, the reward would be victory, aka personal glory. So how is that a spiritual advancement, how does that bring me closer to Christ? I decided in my first year of Lenten observance (I’m a convert) to give up complaining. The following year I gave up criticizing. I will say the consequences of that one bore excellent fruit: For example, what does criticism actually mean? Does it mean giving up comprehension, judgment capability, etc. We confuse criticism with condemnation, and it’s the confusion that causes so much harm. Fides et ratio.

Christ said we should let our fasting and almsgiving be done in secret. He said that those who let their sacrifices be seen by others have their reward already. I’m not telling anyone what I’m giving up for Lent. I’m not even telling myself; success would only lead to spiritual pride. One hand will not know what the other is doing. What can you sacrifice for God? Isn’t everything we have already his? Yes. But we can make the most difficult sacrifice and the only one that’s really in our power: trust. And that’s always done in secret.