The notion of giving something up for Lent is not an unfamiliar one to many who daily traverse the UD campus. Since most of us were in kindergarten, perhaps even younger, we have picked a difficult food choice or habit to remove from our lives for 40 days. For me, this was usually chocolate. I would not be able to wait until Easter Sunday to take that first of the chocolate bunny. (The poor guy's ears usually went first!) For others, it is snacking between meals. Yet others choose to abstain from soda. (Or pop, for those of you who give me odd looks when I say soda as though you haven't been on this campus long enough to know that those two terms are actually interchangeable).

The older I get, the more inappropriate I feel it is to give up a food, or something associated with food. Now, some people truly and honestly remove it from their lives because it is a difficult task. This is perfectly acceptable and a sacrifice worth making. Yet, I feel the majority of people who give up snack foods, or sweets, or ice cream, do it to better their body. This reasoning seems especially reinforced as Daytona is annually just around the corner from Lent, and this type of fasting or diet seems to arrive at an oh-so-convenient time.

Lent should be about offering something up to God. If the food you are giving up, or the habit you are trying to break, is done in a genuine attempt to 'suffer with Christ' then I am okay with it. But if it is for a more superficial reason, I feel as though some priorities in your life may need to be readjusted. Not that anyone is a bad person for doing this. Not at all. But light does need to be shed onto the idea of creating a more meaningful and effective Lenten promise.

The older we get, the more important and valuable doing something can be during Lent. Whether this be volunteering, going to mass, or praying the rosary each day, acts like these seem to be able to re-focus the actual meaning of Lent and remind people of 'the reason for the season.' It makes Lent not a superficial few weeks in which one is only concerned with appearance and how to slim down but instead helps people, reminds them, that their actions are for a higher purpose. If Jesus went to the desert for 40 days to resist temptation and fast, and then He died on the cross to save us from our sins, I think those of us observing Lent, who obviously believe that He is the Savior, at least owe him a genuine Lenten promise.