"Cheating" Lent on St. Paddy's Day?

From sports to board games to test scores, I’ve always been ultra-competitive. So when it comes to giving up something for Lent? For better or for worse, I tend to think about it in terms of winning and losing.

As in, so far I’m winning when it comes to giving up hard liquor and online dating, and losing when it comes to my pledge to wake up at 6am every morning (those are totally normal things to give up for Lent, right?). I think I’m about 4-14 in that last category, which in baseball wouldn’t be half bad, actually. Things are looking up!

Of course, the spiritual life is decidedly not a competition, and so there are significant drawbacks to seeing it through such a lens. This came to mind for me in particular this past Sunday over brunch. The topic came up about the Archbishop’s declaration that we can eat meat on St. Patrick’s day this year, even though it falls on a lenten Friday, when Catholics usually are abstaining from meat.

My buddy may have described the arrangement with a colorful term for bovine excrement, and that’s because it’s “cheating,” according to him. In his view, if you’re going to give something up for Lent, give it up--no exceptions.

Of course, my competitive side found this argument compelling, even if the prideful side of me (which is just as sizable) found it offensive. After all, what if we were to take the same sort of approach with other things in the spiritual life? Do we get a day off from saying our daily prayers on March 17? Are we now allowed to rob banks in honor of St. Paddy? Clearly not.

At first blush, it does seem as if we corned beef-loving Irish folks are just looking for an excuse to carry on with our green-dyed partying even when it happens to fall on a Friday during Lent. And perhaps because he’s new around here and wants to make a good first impression, the honorable Archbishop felt pressured into caving to the red-headed revelers.

But then again, perhaps there’s more going on here than meets the eye.

You see, fasting, abstinence, penance...these are not ends in and of themselves. The Church doesn’t give out awards at the Easter Vigil based upon most strict adherence to lenten promises or highest degree of lenten difficulty. In fact, if the reason you’re giving up something for Lent is to simply prove you can, you’re doing it wrong.

Lent is not for impressing your Catholic friends, or feeling good about yourself. It’s not even about impressing God. Lent is about repentance. And repentance is to turn away from our sinful ways and selfish ambitions and instead turn toward God.

Our lenten disciplines, then, are purposeful only if they aid that goal. We give up meat on Fridays not because it’s the hardest thing in the world. It's not all that hard, really, especially in a world with things like fish tacos. No, we give up meat on Fridays because it’s a simple way to change your routine and try to focus more on God. We give up something that we like, whether it’s chocolate, Facebook, or booze, as a means of repentance. Sure, it helps with developing self-control, but perhaps more importantly it helps with turning one’s mind--and eventually one’s heart--towards God.

Think about it: You’ve got that chocolate bar in your office desk drawer, but you’ve given up chocolate for Lent. You go to grab it, then you realize that you can’t have it because you gave it up. You can either A) be angry that you have to give it up, but gamely grit your teeth and abstain; B) be inconvenienced that you gave it up, but recognize it’s an opportunity to gain self-control and maybe even lose a couple pounds, or C) be inconvenienced that you gave it up, but remind yourself why: you’re doing it to grow in love of God and neighbor, and maybe even say a prayer whenever you’re reminded.

Option A might seem like a run-of-the-mill Catholic approach, but it’s actually totally missing the point. Option B is better, but still not really getting it. Any of our lenten penances--from giving things up throughout Lent to abstaining from meat on Friday--should ideally be based upon option C, which is to say that your primary goal should be to turn your mind and heart towards God--and away from yourself.

With that in mind, then, let’s think again about “cheating” by eating meat on St. Paddy’s Day. First of all, if we put on the mind of the church, we’ll be celebrating no mere St. Paddy, as long as all you think of him is a glorified leprechaun who’s pouring you Guinness. Instead, the Church celebrates Saint Patrick, a real human being who’s in heaven because he lived a holy life and brought the good news of the Gospel to Ireland some 1,500 years ago.

Second of all, if the goal of our penances is to turn our mind and heart to God, why can’t our celebrations be for the same purpose? Indeed, that’s exactly what we mean when we say we’re celebrating the “feast” of St. Patrick, or when we celebrate the feast of any other saint or holy day. The Church invites us to enjoy the day with food, drink, music, etc.--indeed whatever serves to help us enjoy the occasion in good fun--within reason, of course.

Viewed in this way, enjoying meat on St. Patrick’s feast day isn’t cheating at all, at least when it comes to your lenten disciplines. On the contrary, it would be cheating St. Patrick to not celebrate his feast day properly. And if that’s not enough, the Archbishop is telling you so!

Jesus himself was accused of being “a glutton and drunkard” (Luke 7:34) because he didn’t fast as much as his opponents would have expected. But as Ecclesiastes (and The Byrds...) tells us, “There is an appointed time for everything” (Ecclesiastes 3:1), a time to feast and a time to fast, if you will. I’ll let St. Paul take it from here: “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

You don’t magically become a better person by *winning* Lent. You don’t even necessarily become a better Catholic. For any Catholic who has ever tried the whole Lent thing with any sort of earnest has very likely also had the unpleasant experience of finding themselves, seemingly, to be no more holier than before. Is that because you did Lent wrong? Possibly. But more likely when Lent was over you not only stopped your lenten disciplines, but you didn’t carry them out to their true end: to turn away from sin and live the Gospel, no matter the season.

So whether it’s March 16 and you’re fasting or March 17 and you’re feasting, whether it’s Easter Sunday or some random day in the middle of summer, the call to repentance never ends. It just might look a little different, depending on the day.