A Closer Look | Kenneth Craycraft

Every year, we are reminded that Lent should not merely be about giving up habits or pleasures but also adding some positive spiritual discipline. We might give up caffeine or alcohol, for example. Or we might add a spiritual or corporal work of mercy, such as praying the office or visiting the sick. Of course, many of us engage in both kinds of Lenten disciplines, depriving ourselves of some good, while adding good works. The two approaches, both of which many of us practice, can actually be analyzed in distinct ways, as they may provide different spiritual blessings.

“Giving Up”

As a threshold matter, it is important to distinguish giving up some vice or bad habit from giving up some otherwise good pleasure or convenience. Of course, if Lent is a helpful catalyst for giving up a vice, that is a bonus. But giving up a vice should not be a temporary measure, but rather a permanent one. Spiritual (and probably physiological) benefit follows the elimination of a harmful habit. So, if Lent is a good time to throw off some bad habit, who could complain?

But the real spirit of giving something up in Lent is not about things we shouldn’t be doing anyway. Rather, Lenten sacrifice ought to involve some material comfort or otherwise good thing. For example, if we regularly drink too much alcohol, Lent might be time to examine whether we should be drinking at all. But if we are otherwise moderate drinkers, temperately enjoying alcohol with friends or family or around meals, giving this up for Lent is of greater spiritual value than giving up something we shouldn’t be doing anyway. And, of course, many of us give up things that are good but disposed to abuse, such as meat, sweets, TV, or social media.

Giving up some comfort or good pleasurable activity is a reminder of the suffering of Jesus during his 40-day sojourn in the desert. And that calls to mind the 40 years of Israel’s wandering in the desert, homeless, often hungry, and discouraged. By depriving ourselves of good things, we join the suffering of Jesus. This has spiritual benefit for ourselves, of course. Even more importantly, however, we can intend our deprivation for the souls in purgatory or some friend or family who is suffering some illness, disease, or misfortune.

This reminds us that Jesus did not come so that we will never suffer, but rather that our suffering can be both redeemed and redemptive. Of course, suffering must be properly intended. If we give up grudgingly or resentfully, there may perhaps be some physiological benefit, but the spiritual benefit will be elusive. Suffering per se is of little value. Intentional suffering is grace-bearing and salvific.

Perfecting Lent

When God created all things, he pronounced them “very good” (Gn 1:31). But it only took two more chapters of Genesis for God’s very good work to be degraded by sin. In the fall of the man and woman in the Garden of Eden (Gn 3), God’s perfect, complete creation became compromised and corrupted. By asserting their own moral autonomy, the man and woman in Eden fell short of the complete good for which they were created. St. Augustine later defined “evil” as the “privation of good.” This means that evil does not have its own “being.” Evil does not “exist.” Rather, evil is the corruption of existence, which is to say that evil is the corruption of good.

The human quest after the Fall, then, is the restoration of God’s original goodness. This can summarize the entirety of salvation history, in fact. Even in Genesis 3, God declares that He will set in motion the process by which His perfect, but fallen, creation would be restored to its original goodness—its original perfection. God alone offers the means of that restoration through a pure act of grace. But, of course, to receive that gift, we must cooperate with God’s offer through our express assent to the message of the Good News. Put another way, we cooperate in our own re-creation by saying Yes to God in contrast to the No of Adam and Eve.

This brings us back to Lent. In this time of reflection, repentance, and reconciliation, God continues to make us whole again—to restore us to the full, original goodness in which he created us. Put another way, Lent is a time of moving toward perfection.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus concluded the first part of His discourse by telling His listeners, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). The Greek word for “perfect” is derived from the same word (“telos”) that He uses from the Cross in John 19:30, when Jesus says, “It is finished.” Which is to say, Jesus “perfected” His work in an act of complete self-giving on the Cross. This is the same work to which we are called, especially in this season of Lent. It is not “giving up,” but rather “giving to.” We give ourselves to God through works of prayer, sacrifice, and mercy. And as such, we participate in that original goodness by and for which we are created.

Dr. Kenneth Craycraft holds the James J. Gardner Chair of Moral Theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary & School of Theology. He is the author of Citizens Yet Strangers: Living Authentically Catholic in a Divided America.

This article appeared in the March 2026 edition of The Catholic Telegraph Magazine. For your complimentary subscription, click here.