Lent is a time of self-denial and sacrifice. These aren’t terribly popular words in our culture. They seem to many today part of a dark and dingy past when religious superstition dominated all. But what of the rampant self-indulgence that governs today? Is the ability to eat, drink, spend, or have sex whenever you want to – which seem to be the goals lifted by most television programs I see – really an expression of freedom, let alone dignity or meaning? What is strength is you cannot govern yourself? What is wealth if you go to bed each night fearful that you do not have enough? What is power if you are constantly driven by the need...

Lent is a time of self-denial, a chance to remember and identify with the sufferings of our Lord. It is also an opportunity to make do with less and in this way to identify also with all those who have so little, those with whom our Lord identified. That gets increasingly more difficult – and simultaneously more important – in a word that seems to grow more materialistic by the day. It is challenging to watch the ads of television and across the media and not succumb to believing that we just can’t get buy without that new ______________ (fill in the blank). In this light, Lent and its call to self-denial is a gift, an opportunity to...