During the season of Lent, the Church calls us to asceticism.

Catholic asceticism is a discipline in which certain sense pleasures are foregone for the sake of some higher good. To be clear, sense pleasure is not, of itself, evil. For the Catholic ascetic, the evil lies not in matter or pleasure itself but in our disordered inclinations. The Church calls this concupiscence, which the Catechism defines as “the movement of the sensitive appetite contrary to the operation of the human reason” (CCC par. 2515). These disordered motions exist in varying ways and to differing degrees in each person as a consequence of original sin.  Even the just, those who have sanctifying grace, suffer from concupiscence, though they do not incur the guilt of sin thereby when they “manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ” (Catechism of the Council of Trent, No. 1264).

Nonetheless, the unreasonable movements of the animal appetite are to be disciplined and restrained. It is not enough to tolerate these motions and to be content that our rational will is not the cause of them. “For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die: but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live” (Rom. 8:13). In other words, we are commanded to restrain our appetites. For if we do not bind them, then they will bind us. “Know you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are whom you obey, whether it be of sin unto death, or of obedience unto justice” (Rom. 6:16). If we obey every impulse of our sense appetite, without discriminating between what is lawful and unlawful, we are necessarily enslaved to our appetites.

Clearly enough, we are to resist our sinful appetites, but this does not explain the importance of ascetical practices. For fasting, and similar penitential acts, go beyond the restraint of sinful impulses. Fasting goes beyond what the law demands (I do not include ecclesiastical law). Ascetical practices cannot, therefore, be necessary on account of sin (except when the Church gravely binds us to a fast or to abstinence). Still, fasting is a wise practice for the following reason. If we always and without fail indulge our appetites whenever it is lawful to do so, then we are more likely to indulge them even when it is unlawful. Conversely, if we do not always indulge our appetites, even when it is lawfully, we are less likely to indulge them when it would be unlawful. Ascetical practices, then, help us to become more self-controlled.

Lent therefore, is an extended exercise of self-control. It is a marathon in which we exercise the spiritual muscle of saying “No.” Throughout this holy season, therefore, we have a wonderful opportunity to master our appetites and mortify the flesh.