Can Lent be mastered?

By David G. Bonagura, Jr. ( bio - articles - email ) | Mar 20, 2026

Lent is a discipline, a practice, an exercise. The Collect of Ash Wednesday describes it with martial images: Lent is a “campaign of Christian service” in which “we take up battle against spiritual evils…armed with weapons of self-restraint.”

Since exercises and campaigns are undertaken to achieve a goal, it’s fair to ask: Can Lent be mastered? Can we “win Lent?” Conquer Lent?

If we understand Lent superficially as completing a series of practices, then we can master the discipline of Lent: fasts successfully completed, Stations of the Cross prayed, extra money given to charity. Check. Perhaps some Catholics have become good at fasting—they embrace their discomfort and offer it to God without self-pity. Dom Adalbert de Vogüé, O.S.B., describes how he reached this level in To Love Fasting. So it can be done, my personal experience to the contrary notwithstanding.

Of course, the Church has never proposed these spiritual weapons as ends in themselves. They are means to Lent’s true goal: conversion of heart.

But how can we, weighed down by concupiscence, the unremovable thorn of original sin, ever achieve genuine conversion of heart—a lasting turn away from sin and toward God? Even the greatest saints acknowledge that they are sinners in constant need of God’s mercy. Is the goal of Lent unobtainable then? Must we settle for a spiritual “peace without victory”—we make strides towards conversion during Lent but, as sure as next year’s Lent rolls ‘round, we fall short and try again?

If so, then we can’t master Lent.

What if, instead, we approach Lent from the “little way” popularized by St. Thérèse of Lisieux. The goal of Lent remains the same, yet we realize that we cannot reach it—and that is precisely the point. In falling short of full conversion, in falling back into sin, in failing to love God and neighbor as we ought, we realize that we must depend on God for everything, as a young child depends on his parents for survival.

As we grind through Lenten fasts and practices, we experience weakness in our flesh and minds. Yes, we should unite our sufferings with Jesus on the cross and offer them in reparation for our sins. At the same time, we should acknowledge how our twitching for what we have forsaken shows our feebleness and need for God. We cannot carry out these spiritual exercises on our own power—we are wholly dependent on God to spur us into action.

Believing Catholics sincerely desire to grow in holiness through Lent, to shed the flab that sin and worldliness have packed onto our spiritual midsections so we can be lean and fit for the Lord’s service. The fervor with which we rightly embrace Lenten disciplines carries a danger: a hidden pride can arise in our efforts: if we do all these things rightly, then we will be holy. We may even credit ourselves for the triumph.

To ward off our pride, St. Thérèse has addressed a letter to us through her sister Celine: “We would like to suffer generously, grandly, Celine. But what an illusion! We would like never to fall. What does it matter, my Jesus, if I fall every moment? It shows me my weakness. And it is a great gain for me. It shows you what I am capable of and then you will be more tempted to carry me in your arms. If you do not do so, it will be because it pleases you to see me on the ground.”

The best place to find Jesus during Lent is not in the victor’s circle which we enter by virtue of completing our fasting. It is on the ground next to Jesus, fallen again under the weight of our sins. We can only rise if Jesus takes our hand and lifts us on His back. He may allow us to stay on the ground for a while to experience our absolute dependence on Him. If we can embrace this dependence willingly, we may find our most fruitful Lent yet.

Failing to complete a few Lenten resolutions out of weakness, or completing them while encountering tremendous difficulties throughout, can strangely serve us better than successfully knocking down each one. Every time we pity ourselves—rather than offer up—our Lenten-induced hunger, we viscerally feel how difficult it is to give ourselves to Him completely. Our response is critical. If we beat ourselves up, we can cave to the pride St. Thérèse describes. If, however, we ask God to carry us because we cannot properly fast on our own, we are carried by Christ Himself along the road of humility that leads to exaltation.

In this way we master Lent. That is, if Lent masters us, we are exalted in the world-flipping way that is characteristic of the Christian life. To admit our Lenten struggles and beg the Lord for aid is the first step toward mastery.