Whenever our family leaves the house, we always take the diaper bag with us. It’s a non-negotiable with small children. Be it extra clothes or emergency snacks, we can’t leave without it. Similarly, when we enter the desert of Lent, we also need to think about what we need and how we can best prepare our families for this journey. There are a lot of ways that you can engage children in the spirit of Lent, be it small sacrifices or shared meat free meals, but at the end of the day, we as the parents need to make sure our own spiritual lives are being taken care of for our own sake and for the family as a whole.
It can become easy to put ourselves second when we have littles that so deeply need us. Breakfast in our house is a prime example of this. Each morning, we get the kids dressed and make our way downstairs and start with getting the kids their breakfasts. These are usually different from one another due to allergies. Most days, by the time we get our oldest his breakfast, our youngest has already finished hers and is wanting more. My husband and I most days don’t sit down to eat our own breakfast until we know the kids’ hunger has been met.
While feeding our children first is not an inherently bad thing, we are more likely to grow weary or impatient when we do this. We can function in this way, but trying to meet others’ needs while we ourselves are hungry is also not the most fruitful way to live. In the same way, Lent isn’t about seeing how long we can go without food. It’s about leaning into our own hunger and renewing the understanding that sometimes we need more. Sometimes we need to put our own needs first. It can be hard, especially with young children, to feel like we have the time to receive the sacraments and prayer more, we might even feel selfish doing so, but ignoring our hunger for the Lord doesn’t do us or our families any good.
When we ignore our own needs, we truly aren’t ready to meet the needs of our children. It would be like going out without checking to make sure the diaper bag is adequately packed. We encountered a moment recently where we realized that our daughter needed a change of pants and we didn’t have any of hers with us. Luckily, she fit well enough into a pair of her brother’s pants with the legs and top rolled a few times. We made it work, but she admittedly looked kind of silly in her mismatched ensemble.
In Lent, as throughout the rest of the liturgical year, the sacraments and prayer are what help us to stay fed and prepared spiritually. They give us life and keep us connected closely to our Lord. How often do we need to remind ourselves that we need them though? The Sacrament of Confession in particular is one where we may try to convince ourselves we don’t need. We know our Lord is all loving, so why wouldn’t He forgive us if we ask in our own prayer? We knew we had some clothes in the diaper bag, so why would we check to make sure they were the right size? Just like checking the bag to guarantee that we are ready to go out, we need this sacrament to know that we have reconciled our relationship with Christ. Of course, our Lord’s love is unceasing, but we meet Him in the sacrament and through the priest, He tells us, “I absolve you.”
There is temptation in all of this to say that our lives are good so we don’t need any of the sacraments or we don’t need to work on our personal prayer lives, but this is where the evil one can creep into our lives. Much like his attempts to tempt Jesus in the desert, he seeks to feed us the lie that we don’t need God and wants pride to overcome our hearts. To divide us from the Father. To derail our universal call to holiness, which is our primary vocation above all else. This couldn’t be further from the truth, though. We wouldn’t want to take even a quick trip to the store without the diaper bag at least in the car, so why wouldn’t we equip ourselves with all of the graces received through the sacraments and strength from prayer? Remember too that this isn’t just for ourselves. It’s about rooting our lives in Christ so that we can share the love of the Lord with those around us. And at the end of the day, our children need us to do this, because they’re not packing the diaper bag, we are.
Rachel Romantic is a wife and mom of two who loves to spend time with her family and make memories together outside in the garden. She is also the Communications Coordinator at New Albany Church of the Resurrection.