“I feel like I shouldn’t have given up anything for Lent”, a patient said to me the other day.  In the midst of a global pandemic, Lent seems to have taken on a new life. As state and local bodies take drastic actions to curb the transmission of COVID-19, we all suddenly find ourselves in a state of government enforced deprivation and fasting.

Many of us are all but confined to our homes.  Travel is restricted, and spring vacations canceled. Schools are closed.  Churches are closed.  Restaurants, theaters, bowling alleys, and museums are all closed.  In grocery stores, masked customers flit about nervously looking for supplies that have sold out, such as eggs or toilet paper.  Some people are lucky enough to have work that is deemed “essential”, while others are furloughed and applying for unemployment.  The social fabric seems to be ripping apart. Accustomed to a land of plenty, we Americans now find ourselves struggling with privations that are alien to us.

Meanwhile, by coincidence, a large segment of faithful Christians are observing Lent. Lent was conceived as a season of fasting, discipline, and self-sacrifice leading up to Christianity’s holiest and most joyful commemoration, namely Easter.  The point of the fasting is to get past ourselves and our own desires, and to intensify our realization of our need for God and his work in our lives.

Whether voluntary or involuntary, this time of deprivation can either be a miserable mess, or it can be something we can see through eyes of faith as a kind of blessing.  The meaning of Lent, and of the tribulations brought on by the COVID-19 Pandemic, can best be summarized in a statement passed along to me by a friend: “When we come to the end of ourselves, we see the beginning of God’s faithfulness.”