By Nicholas Denysenko, February 22, 2026
By now, you have seen it all. Posts and reposts of popular explanations of Lenten services. Primers on the Lenten diet. Instructions on preparation for Confession. Video clips of prostrations featuring music of familiar Lenten melodies. Admonitions on how to begin the Great Forty Days. Links to Lenten cookbooks.
Yes, liturgical seasons are now part of the consumer culture. An annual confession and frequent attendance of church services are the expectations of membership. And it is perfectly legitimate for a pastor to explain why the Church has services with specific themes, colors, and sounds. Understanding can bolster faith.
Lent, though, is not really about doing more.
It would be more accurate to describe Lent as doing less.
Imagine, for a moment, the most chaotic times of your life. Maybe you were taking care of both children and elderly parents and felt overextended. Maybe job and financial insecurity tugged at your inner peace. Maybe you were in the midst of a health crisis or a relationship on the brink. You wanted to hear God talk to you but couldn’t find the time and space to listen to what God was saying.
Having the church tap you on the shoulder and say, now is the time to temporarily switch to a mostly vegetarian diet and come to church more often wouldn’t be helpful.
Lenten fasting isn’t about exchanging hummus for chicken or buying fake cheese to go with tofurky tacos.
It’s about simplifying your diet, to get by on only what’s necessary. A simple and light diet reduces the importance of food. You learn that you can get by on simple meals that feature ready to eat fruits and vegetables. You were hungry and God satisfied your hunger, even if it meant deferring the TikTok recipe to a later date.
Lenten praying is not about stacking together consecutive services streaks. (“This year I made all four parts of the canon!” “I haven’t missed a Presanctified yet!”)
Lenten praying is about time and space, devoting yourself to times where you are alone with God and listening as much or more than you are reciting your own prayers. Yes, private prayer is not only important, but it’s also essential. Jesus instructed his disciples to pray privately (Mt. 6:6), and he did it on his own on multiple occasions.
Devoting that time and space to be with God is at the heart of Lent. How can we possibly know what God wants from us if we won’t make God the top priority of our lives? If I want God to guide me, I need to shut everything else out to listen to what he is saying to me. Imagine for a moment that Lent was a spiritual retreat where the Church sent all of us out to a very quiet place, with what we need to live, so that we could spend quiet time in prayer. The purpose of a retreat is to refresh and renew you, not to exhaust and stress you out. Accept the invitation to go on a quiet retreat and pray and remember that prayer is just as much listening to how God is speaking to us as it is our own words of prayer.
What about the services, then? Does this explanation of Lent as a period of quiet retreat focused solely on God reduce the services to unnecessary celebrations?
The Church’s primary purpose is to gather for prayer. The Church comes together as a community to pray in all seasons of fasting and feasting. Lenten services are instances of the Church coming together to pray during Lent. The people are supposed to be praying on their own; Lenten services open an opportunity for them to pray in community, with others.
Here is another way of looking at Lent through the example of the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts. We are drawing near to the living God in Lent, especially in private and communal prayer. Receiving the gift of Christ himself in Holy Communion brings us into communion with the Living God. Once again, the purpose is for us to be with God, and for us to be restored and renewed, but not irritable and exhausted.
Very few Christians in this world have the privilege of carving out time and space to simplify everything, living on only what is needed for the purpose of being with God in prayer. What gift could be greater than the reassurance that in all of our anxieties and struggles, God is with us, God loves us, and God will make everything right at the end? Lent is the door that leads to renewal and restoration in the one who promised to carry our burdens, since his yoke is easy and his burden light (Mt. 11:39).
May God grant all of us the blessings of Lent where we rediscover the most precious gift of all – light, life, and joy in Him.
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