Everyday Ignatian is a series written by guest contributors, chronicling their daily lives and experiences through the lens of Ignatian spirituality. This year, we’re excited to introduce a special theme for 2025: Virtues, or Gifts of the Spirit. Featuring writers Alli Bobzien, Catherine Sullivan and Jennifer Sawyer, along with select guest authors, Everyday Ignatian will highlight stories that explore the quarterly themes of prudence, patience, solidarity, and gratitude — and the impact they have on our lives today.
Has this ever happened to you? Without warning, I wake up one morning and it’s Ash Wednesday. I search for the Mass times at all the parishes in my area to find one that might work with my schedule. Then, even with a smear of last year’s palm branches on my head, I have to remind myself all day: “No snacks. No meat. No snacks. No meat.” In small, frantic gaps between my daily tasks, I brainstorm Lenten practices I could take up this year, rejecting them all as either too easy or too hard. By dinner, I haven’t settled on one, so I default to giving up chocolate for the next 39 days. I fail by Friday.
I have a hard time with Lent. A chronic overachiever, sometimes I take Lent way too far, assigning myself multiple disciplines and creating rules and requirements that are not necessary. Other years, embarrassed by the shame that I often feel during Lent or overwhelmed with my responsibilities as a mother of young children, I have given myself permission to skip Lent entirely.
Prudence, or the ability to make a good decision in conversation with God, has helped me navigate this sometimes rocky time of year with peace and grace, and transformed this season for me into the time of spiritual growth it is meant to be.
Frustrated by my uncomfortable and often scatterbrained relationship with the season, I decided to take a different approach to Lent a few years ago. By the grace of God, I started thinking about Lent several weeks in advance. Then I invited God into the conversation as I carefully decided on my Lenten discipline.
The Ignatian practice of discernment helped me in this pursuit. For several days in a row, I paid careful attention to my daily routine. I asked myself again and again, “How can I make more space for God?” I listened for God’s response in the form of consolation and desolation. Slowly, I started to notice how often I turned on music as soon as I was alone — getting ready in the morning, driving to school, exercising, and taking care of my home and work in the evenings. It was on constantly, and it didn’t bring me the consolation I expected. Instead, it often left me feeling depleted and far from God.
The Scripture and spiritual masters I have read over the years offered a solution by reminding me that God comes to us in silence. That Lent, I decided to give up listening to music when I was alone. It was a discipline that was neither “hard” nor “easy.” At that moment in my spiritual life, it was prudent, and because of that, it bore great spiritual fruit.
The year I prudently chose silence was different: For the first time, Lent did not feel uncomfortable or scattered. Certainly, the silence was uncomfortable at first. I missed the company of the music and the way it sparked my emotions and imagination. Yet as Lent continued, the silence — and the presence of God I could feel in it — started to feel warm and welcoming, strong and steady. Many years later, I still enjoy the silent company of God as I get ready in the morning or wash the dishes in the evening.
So often I have tossed my Lenten disciplines away as soon as the first Alleluia resounds on Easter Sunday. I think that’s because when I choose a discipline in haste, it becomes a self-improvement exercise or a race against time. Instead of a spiritual journey closer to the heart of God, Lent becomes a competition with myself, grounded in human willpower alone. Uncomfortable and fruitless, indeed.
But when I take the time to pray for prudence as I discern my Lenten practices, I can find something that is just right for me. I have discovered that a discipline chosen with prudence can bear great spiritual fruit, not just during Lent alone, but long afterward and far into my spiritual life.
This year, I am trying to approach Lent with prudence once again. In the coming weeks, I will be asking myself and God the following questions and paying careful attention to the answers. I invite you to do the same.
- What in my life is getting in the way of making time and space for God?
- How can I remove those obstacles one piece at a time?
- How can I refill that time and space with one tested and true practice that will bring me closer to the heart of God?
