The best way to prepare for Lent, about 30 days from now, is not to decide what to give up as if you were 9 years old, but how you are going to send Satan packing. Father John Tauler +1361 wrote that “when evil comes roaring upon poor, weak men, they instantly fall down helpless and he comes and tears them to pieces. Saint Peter bids us to be bold and vigilant and to withstand bravely the assaults of the demon with weapons of holy faith.” He goes on and says that “one should take the same actions of a garrison of a beleaguered city which knows that the enemy’s army vastly outnumbers its own. Where ever the ramparts are weakest, concentrate the strongest defense or the city and its defenders and treasures are lost.
So must each one of us know the weakest side of our character, for no doubt the evil one will deliver his fiercest attack – that is to say where he finds the greatest tendency to vice.“
Vice is a rarely used word these days but worth noting that these are our main ramparts where Satan attacks and where we must be bold and vigilant; lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. We must strengthen our weak ramparts with virtues.
Every single one of us already knows where we are ramparts are weakest.
The CCC (Catechism of the Catholic Church) states that vice is a habit acquired by repeated sin in violation of the proper norms of human morality. Repentance and confession may restore grace to the soul, but the removal of the ingrained disposition to sin or vice requires much more effort and self-denial until the contrary virtue is acquired. 1866
Keep your chocolate! Rooting out our ingrained disposition to sin is a much better Lenten exercise that will send Satan packing.
