It is right and just: Entering Lent with gratitude and discipline
Catholics should keep Lent, and we should keep it seriously, because it is not some medieval invention that just appeared out of nowhere in the Middle Ages. That claim collapses the moment you look at the testimony of the Fathers. Even Pope St. Leo the Great, writing in the fifth century, speaks of the Lenten discipline as something handed down from the apostles themselves. That should already reset our mindset. Lent is not a late human tradition cooked up by Rome. It belongs to the living memory of the Church, rooted in apostolic practice and shaped by centuries of Christian devotion. When we enter Lent, we are stepping into something ancient, something bigger than ourselves, something that stretches all the way back to the earliest followers of Christ. And that matters because Catholic spirituality is never about inventing novelty. It is about receiving and participating in what has been handed on.
Now, as Lent approaches, the first attitude we should have is gratitude. We Catholics should thank God for His generosity and mercy, because at the center of this season is the reality that Our Lord bore the burden of our sins. Jesus Christ suffered for us. He was scourged, humiliated, nailed to the Cross, and endured death precisely because we sinned and rebelled against God. Lent forces us to confront that uncomfortable truth in a healthy and salvific way. This is why we keep the season. We reflect, we repent, we offer ourselves back to Him in thanksgiving. At Mass we hear the words dignum et iustum est “it is right and just.” That line is not poetic filler. It sums up the Catholic response to redemption. It is right and just that we do something in return. Not to earn salvation, but to respond to grace with love, discipline, and sacrifice.
Unfortunately, many Catholics treat Lent like an annual obligation checklist. Give something up, tick the box, move on. But the Church teaches something deeper. Lent is meant to be experienced. We enter spiritually into Christ’s suffering. We unite ourselves with Him. We fast and pray not merely because rules require it, but because we desire communion with His sacrifice. That is why fasting and prayer are so emphasized in Scripture. In Gospel of Matthew, when the apostles ask why they could not cast out certain demons, Christ answers that such evils are overcome only through prayer and fasting. That should hit us today. Look around at modern society. There is confusion, moral decay, spiritual emptiness, and yes, real demonic influence. When faith disappears, discipline disappears. When sacrifice disappears, disorder grows. Catholics historically fasted not only for personal holiness but in reparation for the sins of the world. When that spirit fades, we should not be surprised that darkness feels stronger. Lent is our annual call to reclaim spiritual combat through prayer, fasting, and penance.
Even the beginning of Lent, Ash Wednesday, shows how deeply biblical this spirituality is. The use of ashes was not invented in some Vatican office. It has roots in the Old Testament witness. In Book of Job and Book of Daniel, ashes appear as signs of repentance, mourning, and humility before God. Early Christians saw the prophets doing this and understood it as an outward sign of inward conversion. The ashes placed on our heads or foreheads continue that biblical pattern. They remind us of mortality, repentance, and commitment to God. And then you have the powerful imagery in Book of Ezekiel, where the faithful are marked on their foreheads with a sign resembling the letter “T,” a figure Christians have long associated with the Cross. So again, this is not arbitrary ritualism. It is Scripture embodied. When Catholics receive ashes, we are participating in a visible, biblical tradition of penance.
Finally, we need to address fasting honestly. Sometimes Catholics look at the fasting discipline of Muslims during Ramadan and feel impressed by its intensity. But historically, Christians practiced severe fasting long before Islam existed. In the early Church, fasting commonly lasted until sundown, and Lenten discipline could be very rigorous. Over time, pastoral adjustments reduced the intensity, often out of compassion for changing circumstances, but the original spirit should not be forgotten. The point is not competition with another religion. The point is remembering our own heritage. Catholic fasting was once robust and spiritually formative. Recovering even a portion of that seriousness would transform many souls. Lent invites us to rediscover that tradition, not out of nostalgia, but out of love for Christ.
So when we put it all together, Catholics should keep Lent because it is apostolic in origin, rooted in gratitude for Christ’s sacrifice, grounded in Scripture, and essential for spiritual warfare and repentance. It is not merely seasonal routine. It is participation in the mystery of redemption. When we fast, pray, and repent, we are saying with our lives what the liturgy says with words. It is right and just.