{"id":9963,"date":"2026-02-28T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=9963"},"modified":"2026-02-27T03:43:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T03:43:21","slug":"lenten-misery-misses-the-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/lenten-misery-misses-the-point\/","title":{"rendered":"Lenten Misery Misses the Point"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Detail,<\/a>
Detail, “The Fight Between Carnival and Lent”, Pieter Brueghel the Elder. (1559) In this bit, Lent’s winning.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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\"Brian<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It’s Lent and I’m a Catholic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how come I’m not sitting in some dark corner, reflecting on doom, gloom, and how perfectly rotten I am?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or at least moaning and wringing my hands over the world’s dreadfully dire state: as illustrated in my news feed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basically, it’s because neither will help me line myself up with Jesus: doing prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.1<\/a><\/sup> Work on lining myself up, that is: it’s a job that lasts as long as life does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Fasting and Focus<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\"thefoodplace.co.uk's<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Now, fasting<\/strong> I could feel guilty about, since “abstaining from luxuries”, as one resource put it, assumes that luxuries are already part of my everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can’t give up lobster thermidor and Caribbean cruises for Lent because they aren’t part of my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No virtue there: they’re simply not options for me. On the other hand, avoiding lesser luxuries is possible, and emphatically a work in progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, giving up stuff isn’t the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working on “a true inner conversion … to follow Christ’s will more faithfully” is<\/strong>.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Gloominess, Health, and a Little History<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"George<\/a>
Billy Sunday, telling them what for in Philadelphia. (March 1905)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another reason I’m not working on my moaning and groaning, striving for every-deeper dives into despondency, is that it’d be a really bad idea.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Johann<\/a>
18th century illustration of the four temperaments: phlegmatic, choleric, sanguine, melancholic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

That’s because ‘blessed are the miserable, for they shall spread misery’ is not<\/strong> one of the beatitudes, and melancholia isn’t healthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Melancholia”, along with other Greco-Roman ideas about disease, humorism, and the mind, hasn’t been part of serious medicine for a century or so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s associated with one of the four old-school personality types:<\/p>\n\n\n\n