The most obvious association that people have with Lent is of “giving something up.” In many cases, of course, this is perfectly legitimate. Along with prayer and almsgiving, fasting is one of the three traditional pillars of Lenten observance, and it is mandated (with exceptions) on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

But two problems come to mind with this association. The first is that it becomes nothing more than a do-over from our failed New Year resolutions. We give up alcohol, sweets, or some other carnal pleasure for the purpose of losing five pounds or fitting into a bathing suit by Memorial Day. Lent becomes a secularized self-help fad, with no intentional connection to repentance and spiritual discipline. The cruel irony is that fasting in this sense serves precisely the opposite of its proper purpose. It sharpens our focus on external, sometimes frivolous, goods, rather than interior ones. We don’t give up pleasures for penance, but rather so we can enjoy other pleasures.

The second problem with an over-emphasis on “giving up” is that it may tend to cheapen our Lenten observances, even when they are properly directed toward spiritual growth. Of the three pillars, fasting involves the least effort. Indeed, it is the only one of the three that can be fulfilled by not doing something. It is much easier not to eat that donut or drink that scotch than it is to develop a robust prayer life or give alms to the poor. Coupled with the first problem, Lenten fasting may feed a superficial desire for self-congratulation. But it does little to bring us closer to God, which is, after all, Lent’s purpose. Fasting is a necessary aspect of Lenten observance. But fasting alone is not a substitute for the fullness of Lenten practice.

It is especially not a substitute for prayer, which may be the most difficult of Lenten discipline’s three pillars.

In his Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul expresses the difficulty of prayer, and even associates this difficulty with suffering. “I consider the sufferings of the present time are nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us,” he writes in Romans 8:18. It’s a glory we cannot see, and yet, we must discipline ourselves so that we can “wait with endurance” for the fullness of our salvation. Then St. Paul gets to the heart of the difficulty in authentic prayer: the “Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings” (Rom. 8:26).

We Catholics are largely used to reciting prayers written by the Biblical authors or passed down to us through centuries of Catholic tradition. This is an important aspect of prayer. Contrary to being merely rote, our collective prayers symbolize—indeed they realize—the Church’s catholicity and unity. We pray everywhere as one. But we must also make these prayers our own. It is not sufficient merely to say the words; we must also make them part of our personal intentions. Sometimes that requires us to dive more deeply into our own interior struggle to pray authentically. And it requires us to seek the Holy Spirit’s assistance, even to intercede for us.

In her posthumously published prayer journal, Flannery O’Connor wrestled with just such an issue. Her written prayers are not only a window into her struggles, but a doorway into our spiritual growth.

Echoing St. Paul, O’Connor writes, “My dear God, how stupid we people are until You give us something. Even in praying, it is You who have to pray in us. I would like to write a beautiful prayer but I have nothing to do it from.” What O’Connor does not see is that this itself is a prayer of high beauty and truthfulness. In her desire to write eloquent prayers, she wrote inelegantly beautiful ones.

In another prayer she pleaded, “Please help me to get down under things and find where You are.” She was not discounting the “traditional prayers I have said all my life,” she continues, “but I have been saying them and not feeling them.” And in the perfect description of tendencies in my own prayer life, she laments, “My attention is always very fugitive.”

We should take O’Connor’s laments about the difficulty of prayer not as a weakness, but instead a strength. Nor should we see them as expressions of a spiritually empty person, but rather a spiritually robust one. The feeling of aridity and sterility in O’Connor’s prayers are themselves an expression of the depth of her desire to enter into conversation with God. Her spiritual poverty is richness, because it drives her more deeply into the inner life where the Truth is found.

St. Paul and Flannery O’Connor teach us that prayer is hard. For precisely that reason, it is necessary in our Lenten discipline. When we feel bereft, O’Connor’s prayers are a helpful guide. And if we seek Him, the “Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.”

Dr. Kenneth Craycraft is a professor at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary and the author of Citizens Yet Strangers: Living Authentically Catholic in a Divided America (OSV Press, 2024).

This article appeared in the March 2024 edition of The Catholic Telegraph Magazine. For your complimentary subscription, click here.