“O Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones. Let me find you again. Amen.” —Henri Nouwen
Google says that Lent is a “solemn Christian religious observance in the liturgical year in preparation for Easter. It echoes the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, before beginning his public ministry.”
Somewhere along the way, people in the church decided that since Jesus fasted before his death and resurrection, we should too. Then, the ideal was whittled down until the essence that remained was fasting not from all food all the time, but fasting from meat on Fridays which would allow us to give our meat money to the starving. Devout Catholics still observe this tradition today.
However, I’ve seen that Fridays in the Catholic-ly populated midwest have become something of a party. Lenten Fridays in Nebraska and Iowa are a time where people gather in smokey community centers to swim through a haze of grease, and sit together at paper covered tables eating fish with slaw and hushpuppies. I’ve been there and it’s wonderful and delicious. But it’s a bit of a departure from Google’s definition that “Lent is solemn.”
Many Protestant believers also celebrate Lent, but not necessarily by giving up meat on Fridays. I’ve had friends give up social media, coffee, or TV. It’s all in an effort to focus more on how we should be living in light of Jesus’s sacrifice.
When I occasionally helped at the Charlotte Mason school in Birmingham, AL, they celebrated the Christian year in their chapel services. The students all wore different capes for different parts of the year. The ones they wore for Lent were made of burlap. They were brown and drab and scratchy. But after Lent they got to turn the uncomfortable capes in for one made of purple velvet signifying the royalty of Jesus. It was beautiful and soft. A definite upgrade and it demonstrated in a way the students could truly understand that something wonderful had happened.
One year for Lent, I listened to a specific Christian song every day - Keep Making Me by Sidewalk Prophets. In 2026, for every day between Palm Sunday and Easter I watched an episode of The Chosen. I liked doing both of those things. They made me think and that made me feel closer to Jesus and the trials he went through. It made Lent and my faith more of a practice, more of an almost tangible part of my life. Perhaps I’m not just adding something into my life, maybe I’m giving up what I would normally listen to or watch in exchange for something that will bring me closer to God.
I don’t seem to be as good at giving something up for 40 days. In college, a friend of mine suffered through the jitters and headaches of going without caffeine for Lent. I was with her on Easter Monday when she sat on the floor of her dorm room with a huge Coke. I think she had jitters and a headache after that, too. My sister has given up secular music and styrofoam takeout containers. She says giving up something for Lent shouldn’t look like you’re trying to lose weight, like giving up chocolate or fried food.
Another friend of mine who grew up Catholic asked her children to give up sugar for the week leading up to Easter. The sugar rush they got from the candy in their Easter baskets must have been real and intense.
While I think it’s amazing to even contemplate giving something up (or adding something in) as a spiritual practice during Lent, what happens after that? After the 40 days, what then? It seems there should be another spiritual discipline you employ, kind of like a maintenance phase.
But, maybe life is a maintenance phase. When I just looked up “what is a maintenance phase” Google told me that a maintenance phase is when people use several weeks after a diet or weight loss to let their bodies adjust to a new norm. “(A maintenance phase) allow(s) the body to recover physically and mentally before potentially resuming weight loss or focusing on other goals.”
Eastertide, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time, the next three parts of the Christian year, may fall right in line with Google’s wisdom. After the excitement of Jesus’ resurrection and the potential stress of giving up complaining or Chick Fil A, it might be time for a little recovery. It might also be time to rest before focusing on another area of life that needs attention.
So maybe instead of thinking how sad and drab it is to be in the season of “Ordinary Time” I’ll reframe that to be a season of slowing down and reflection. A time not to test myself, but to let myself recover from the strain of adding or taking out something hard and taxing.
So, what about you? How do you observe Lent? I’d love to know.
“Lent is a time for discipline, for confession, for honesty, not because God is mean or fault- finding or finger-pointing but because he wants us to know the joy of being cleaned out, ready for all the good things he now has in store.”
― N.T. Wright
