The turning from sin that is at the heart of Lent has obvious political and social implications. Becoming better people makes us better participants in society.

Lenten Meditations on Politics

by James Kalb

Lent is a time of personal transformation, so it is a time of inwardness. It nonetheless has an outward-turning aspect. Man is social, and God is other than ourselves, so in addition to fasting to help us put our attachments in their place, Lent encourages prayer and almsgiving to increase our love of God and neighbor.

Those things have a political aspect. Love of neighbor starts with direct personal engagement, but it also aspires to a social order more worthy of humanity. And putting God first gives us a perspective on worldly concerns, including politics, that enables us to know what they are and what we should do with them.

Political life also needs transformation, so people involved with it need to think about it during Lent. Nonetheless, the perspective should be different from that of everyday politics. With that in mind, how should we think about politics during Lent, and how will that help us to a better way politically?

The most basic point is one already mentioned: perspective. Love of God and periodic stepping back from worldly concerns helps us turn from worship of the here and now and maintain a proper scale of values. There’s a tendency today to treat the social world as the highest reality, so that the good, beautiful and true are judged by their relation to political goals, and attaining those goals becomes the final standard. That tendency has even affected Catholics who should be immune to it.

In fact, politics and social issues are secondary, and the greatest political contribution Christianity can make today is to bring that home. The Church has always proposed goals and standards that are higher and more authoritative than secular ones. Her insistence on doing so, and the resulting tension between Church and State, have been basic to freedom and good order in the West. That connection between God and good government is still with us. When men forget God whatever worldly goal seems most pressing takes His place and justifies sacrifice of all other values. The consequences, as Solzhenitsyn noted, have included the horrors of communism. More recently a softer this-worldly utopianism has led to dubious wars and a multifaceted attempt to replace the sexual constitution of man and society by a regime of pure will. Such deviations would be far less likely if we remembered that we did not create the world and it is not ours to do with as we choose.

Lent also promotes love of neighbor, which helps us remember our connection to others and avoid absorption in partisanship. It reminds us of the public good, and moderates political enmity without detracting from the importance such issues can have. It is also necessary for the endurance and effectiveness of free institutions, since they depend on a widely diffused spirit of trust and cooperation.

With such things in mind we have plenty to meditate on. The turning from sin that is at the heart of Lent has obvious political and social implications. Becoming better people makes us better participants in society. The political benefits of abandoning pride, envy, wrath, and avarice are obvious, and in recent times even chastity has taken on political importance. So during Lent we need to consider first and foremost whether our motives and conduct are what they should be. We need not always aim directly at the highest goods, since we also have legitimate lower-level concerns, but our motives, goals, and actions should be consistent with those goods and somehow guided by them.

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