Anthony (not his real game) was the fifth child in a family of seven kids, with the eighth on the way. He was extroverted, bright, and imaginative. At “meet the teacher night,” his mother warned me that this second grader sometimes acted out because he felt overlooked.
As an academically gifted student, Anthony had the ability to “see” numbers and their relationships in ways most people don’t. However, he would become frustrated when he didn’t grasp a mathematical concept quickly and animated when he couldn’t communicate what he was seeing. Anthony was enthusiastic about demonstrating what he knew and tended to blurt out responses, whether he was being asked the question or not. His need for attention, communication challenges, and enthusiasm to contribute frequently caused him to disrupt the entire class.
I kept Anthony’s parents informed about his academic progress and social interactions, especially if he had notable successes or struggles. Anthony’s mother told me she had assumed her son had disturbed the class when she saw the first line of the following email. She was pleasantly surprised and proud as she continued reading.
Dear parents, I’m writing to inform you about Anthony’s behavior today. At the end of each day, the class takes two minutes to clean the classroom. This includes playing a game we call ‘Secret Piece of Trash.’ I select a scrap of paper on the floor, and the student who throws it away wins the game. The winner gets a roll of Smarties. Anthony won today. When I handed him the candy, he politely refused. ‘No thank you. I don’t want it.’ This seemed out of character, so I asked him why. He replied, ‘It’s Lent, and I’m not eating candy.’ I gave him a high five and praised him for his self-control and self-advocacy. Then I told him what I was fasting from and let him select something different from the prize box. Your son demonstrated profound character and integrity, and I want you to know your parenting is making a difference in the classroom. Thank you for raising such an admirable child. Anthony’s consistent example makes a positive difference to his classmates and to me also.
I knew the parish Anthony’s family attended, so I should have expected he might have been fasting from candy. His dedication to maintaining his fast when no one would have known the difference made a deep impression on me, and I’m a better Christian because of him. His faithfulness was compelling because he demonstrated that fasting is about much more than giving something up.
The collect for Ash Wednesday prays, “Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting this campaign of Christian service, so that, as we take up the battle against spiritual evils, we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint.” Anthony would have preferred to enjoy the candy, but he had taken up the arms of self-restraint to battle against spiritual evils. Anthony was practicing to become a saint.
St. Pope John Paull II explained fasting to a group of young people in 1979. “Fasting means putting a limit on so many desires, sometimes good ones, in order to have full mastery of oneself, to learn to control one’s own instincts, to train the will in good.” Fasting teaches the mind to control the body’s cravings. This translates into spiritual strength to resist temptation and choose virtue.
Pope Benedict XVI echoed the Act of Contrition when he described fasting, “The Sacred Scriptures and the entire Christian tradition teach that fasting is a great help to avoid sin and all that leads to it.” Pope Francis agreed with his predecessors when he affirmed fasting involves “turning away from the temptation to ‘devour’ everything to satisfy our voracity and being ready to suffer for love.”
Because Lent is a liturgical season of the Church, the 40-day fast is not only an act of personal asceticism. We fast together with our sisters and brothers. Pope Paul VI pointed out, “Lent is a time of self-denial and penance; but it is also a time of fellowship and solidarity.” In his 2013 homily for Ash Wednesday, Pope Francis elaborated on the communal aspect of Lent, “Fasting makes sense if it questions our security, and if it also leads to some benefit for others.” Anthony’s fasting has benefitted me to aspire toward holiness over all these years.
Pope Francis, in his 2024 Message for Lent, teaches that the Church would benefit if people would give up certain attachments for Lent. He uses the word “attachment” twice. First is when describing how fasting, prayer, and almsgiving combine as “a single movement of openness and self-emptying, in which we cast out the idols that weigh us down, the attachments that imprison us.” The pope goes on to suggest some attachments that we might fast from. “We can become attached to money, to certain projects, ideas or goals, to our position, to a tradition, even to certain individuals. Instead of making us move forward, they paralyze us. Instead of encounter, they create conflict.” His statement deserves a close reading.
Francis did not advise fasting from the tradition. He addressed attachment to a tradition. Francis has repeatedly advocated for respecting what Pope John Paul II called “the living character of Tradition.” He told a group of Canadian Jesuits in 2022, “That is why it is important to have respect for tradition, the authentic one.”
The Church is experiencing two major conflicts over tradition. The first involves so-called traditionalism or what Pope Francis has described as restorationism. Macolm Schluenderfritz applies the term to “individuals and groups who claim that the Tridentine Liturgy is objectively, not subjectively, superior to the Vatican II Liturgy, and that the Vatican II Liturgy itself, apart from any distortions, is problematic or inferior.” More than a personal preference for the Mass in Latin or elaborate liturgical rituals, traditionalism has become a disposition that believes Pope Francis is fundamentally wrong in his approach to Catholic teaching and tradition.
Traditionalism has attracted keyboard warriors, “influencers,” some bishops, and even a few cardinals who seek to instate their idiosyncratic opinions. Pope Francis had coined the word indietrism to describe this as an ideology of backwardism.
A different debate over tradition has occurred in Germany, where the national Synod has threatened to take the German Church down its own path. Pope Francis has expressed apprehension toward portions of their reform movement that “continue to threaten to move further away from the common path of the universal Church.”
When people feel overlooked and believe their positions are not getting the attention they deserve, they might be tempted, like Anthony, to act out. It occurs on social media when Catholics spew vitriol at the pope and anyone else they disagree with. There’s sweet satisfaction of a self-righteous sugar rush when asserting that “our view of tradition” represents the true tradition. Anthony was a child, so his outbursts were understandable. The misbehavior by adults causes lasting damage.
Disputes about tradition online, in Catholic media, and among high-ranking clerics have grown intense. Fiery arguments have fueled resentment, shattered friendships, and divided families. It occasionally feels like some have accepted the rifts as permanent or, worse, they hope a new pope will reverse the decisions of the current one. Attachment to any insular view of tradition prevents encountering others in the wider tradition. Listening ends, defensiveness begins, and conflict ensues.
Pope Pius XII quoted the Roman Missal to emphasize the integrity necessary for fasting. “Otherwise religion clearly amounts to mere formalism, without meaning and without content.” For Catholics to fast during Lent while insisting on blinkered views of tradition and obstinately refusing to follow the pope’s lead is little more than an exercise in religious self-indulgence.
When people are passionate about their personal interpretation of tradition, it might be difficult for them to let go of it. Nevertheless, fasting provides the rigorous spiritual training of self-emptying that creates the freedom to engage with the Church’s tradition as it is, rather than as anyone would have it be. This is why Pope Francis insisted, “our Lenten journey is synodal.”
The spiritual battle of self-restraint isn’t waged online or among clerics at the Vatican. Instead, it occurs within the heart. Fasting intentionally with and for the Church during Lent can lessen attachment to “a tradition” and open a space that permits communal engagement with people who might disagree with one another. This is why Lent is a pilgrimage of the whole Church.
My student Anthony took his Lenten training seriously. By saying no to a single pack of Smarties, he was training his mind in self-restraint that will enable him to say no to temptations later in life. Quarrelling and calumny may taste as sweet, but they will turn sour in the stomach of the body of Christ. When tempted to further the scandal of division over tradition, Anthony’s pithy reply provides an example to follow, “No thank you. I don’t want it. It’s Lent, and I’m not eating candy.”
Image: Lent in Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church, Houston, Texas. From Wikimedia Commons.
Kevin Beck is a former educator who lives in Colorado Springs with his family. After being diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder, he began writing on disability, grief and the intersection of disability and faith.
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