How Is YOUR Lent Going?
On the First Sunday of Lent, my Pastor, Fr. Eric, began Mass with the question, “How’s your Lent going?” It’s a question we ask often this time of year, and it’s worth pausing to really answer it. Lent is a sacred invitation to go into the desert with Christ; to fast, pray, and face our temptations honestly. Those forty days in the wilderness were not just about hunger or isolation; they were about clarity. Jesus confronted the temptations that could have drawn Him away from His mission. During the liturgical Lenten season, each of us is asked to do the same: to see what distracts us, what drives us, and what tempts us to rely on our own strength instead of God’s.
For those of us who serve with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Lent can also be a time of reckoning with a very particular temptation — the temptation to take on too much.
Service to the poor, by its very nature, stirs deep compassion. When we see a family suffering, when we meet a neighbor sleeping in a car, when we hear yet another desperate plea for help, our hearts respond at once. We are Vincentians after all; people whose vocation is to bring the love of Christ to those in need. Yet here lies one of the devil’s most subtle tricks, one that St. Vincent himself warned against.
In one of his letters to the early Vincentians, St. Vincent de Paul cautioned his followers about what he called “the ruse of the devil.” He wrote that the evil one sometimes tempts good people not by urging them toward sin, but by pushing them to do more good than they can manage. Overactivity, he said, can exhaust the servant of God, leading to frustration, discouragement, and eventually spiritual dryness. What begins as zeal for doing good can end in weariness of spirit.
That warning feels as relevant today as it must have in 17th‑century France. In our busy modern world, being “overcommitted” is almost a badge of honor. In ministry, it can even feel holy. We tell ourselves that we can rest later, that the poor can’t wait, that saying “no” is selfish. But in truth, overextension is not sacrifice. It is a distortion of our call to serve.
Consider Jesus in the desert as described in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The devil tempts Him with immediate solutions: “Turn these stones into bread,” “Throw yourself down and the angels will save you,” “All the kingdoms of the world can be yours if you worship me.” Each temptation is essentially the same: Do more. Be more. Prove yourself. Yet Jesus resists, not through might, but through surrender to the Father’s will. He chooses patience over performance, obedience over urgency.
That same wisdom applies to our Vincentian service. We are not asked to do everything. We are asked to do what God asks, nothing more and nothing less. As Pope Francis wrote in Evangelii Gaudium, “Time is greater than space.” In other words, genuine transformation takes time. We plant seeds and trust God to bring the harvest. When we rush or take on too much, we begin trying to occupy spaces that belong to God alone.
And in his recent exhortation, Dilexi Te, Pope Leo XIV reminds us that authentic love of Christ always leads to service, but never to self‑destruction. He insists that the Lord does not ask us to exhaust ourselves in a way that closes our hearts to prayer, community, and joy. Love, he teaches, must be ordered: it begins with receiving God’s grace and only then overflows in generous action. When our service to the poor is rooted in this ordered love, it remains a path to holiness rather than a burden that crushes our spirit.
Many volunteers have felt the creeping weariness that follows overcommitment. It doesn’t happen overnight. It begins with saying yes a few too many times; one more call, one more personal encounter visit, one more meeting. Then comes the fatigue, the frustration, the resentment (“Why isn’t everyone doing as much as me!”), and the quiet thought: “No matter how much I do, it’s never enough.”
When that thought takes hold, we’ve lost sight of the essential truth that the poor are not projects, and we are not saviors. We are companions. We walk alongside our neighbors, offering what we can, trusting God to do the rest. Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical Rerum Novarum, reminded Catholics that works of charity must always flow from “a spirit of Christian moderation” and be guided by prudence. Charity, when fueled only by emotion or urgency, becomes unsustainable.
In our time, Pope Francis spoke just as clearly about this. In his address to pastoral workers at the Vatican, he warned of a “spiritual burnout” that comes from confusing mission with activity. “We must learn to rest in the Lord,” he said, “to take time to pray, to recover, to be with our families.” Service that exhausts the heart ceases to be service, it becomes self‑sacrifice without grace.
St. Vincent de Paul understood balance as a sign of humility. He told his missionaries, “Do not be upset if you cannot do everything you would like to do, as long as you do what you can as you ought.” That phrase, “as you ought,” is key. It means discerning what God actually asks of us, and not what our pride or guilt demands.
Lent invites us to rediscover that discernment. When we fast, we learn restraint. When we pray, we relearn dependence. When we give alms, we remember that our resources, our time, talent, treasure, are not infinite. They belong to God and must be used with wisdom. That same wisdom should guide our volunteering and our ministry.
A few practical questions may help us in this Lenten reflection:
- Am I saying yes to everything because I’m afraid of disappointing someone?
- Has my prayer time suffered because I’m always serving?
- Do I mistake busyness for holiness?
- Am I leaving space for God to act, or am I trying to control the results myself?
If any of these questions stir your conscience, you’re not alone. Lent isn’t a season for guilt; it is a season for realignment and the joy of renewal.
The Society is not strengthened by the number of activities we perform, but by the depth of the love we bring to each encounter. Think of the early Church described in the Acts of the Apostles: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). Their strength came not from doing everything but from doing the essentials together — worshipping, listening, sharing.
Our Councils and Conferences can live that same spirit by pausing, praying, and discerning together. Sometimes the holiest decision a Vincentian can make is to slow down, to focus on fewer works done with more love.
As we move through the remaining weeks of Lent, let’s make spiritual balance part of our discipline. Set aside intentional time for rest and reflection. Seek quiet moments of gratitude for the work God allows you to do. If you sense exhaustion creeping in, don’t see it as failure, see it as an invitation from the Spirit to renew your strength.
Consider making your personal Lenten task this: instead of adding something new, consider releasing something that has become too heavy. Step back from one commitment to make room for prayer. Turn one “yes” into a gracious, faithful “not this time.” Let that act of restraint become your offering.
When we serve with peace, with balance, and with dependence on God’s grace, our ministry bears fruit that lasts. We become not just helpers of the poor, but witnesses to hope. And that, after all, is the heart of the Vincentian vocation.
May this Lent bring you clarity, renewal, and the joy of serving as Christ served; lovingly, humbly, and always in harmony with the will of God.
Peace and God’s blessings,
John
