LENT: A TIME TO KNOW OURSELVES AND OUR NEED FOR REDEMPTION
By +Jerome, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate

Introduction: The Inconvenient Truth of Lent

Modern man is a master of evasion. If there is one thing he cannot bear, it is silence. He must always have something—music, screens, chatter, distractions—to drown out the voice of conscience. He rushes about in a flurry of activity, as if by perpetual motion he could avoid that most dreadful of encounters: the confrontation with himself. He is like a man standing before a mirror but constantly adjusting the light so that he never quite sees the reflection staring back at him.

The modern world does not want you to know yourself. It would rather you lose yourself in an endless pursuit of trivialities. It tells you to indulge your every desire, to affirm yourself without question, to construct an identity based on fleeting emotions rather than immutable truth. The idea that man is a fallen creature, in desperate need of salvation, is simply intolerable to the progressive mind.

But this is nothing new. Fallen man has always sought to avoid the truth about himself. From the moment Adam hid in the garden, the human race has tried to escape self-knowledge. The world offers endless diversions, but at the end of the day, as every person facing death without faith discovers, the soul is still left alone with itself.

So how do we achieve this self-knowledge? How do we come to see what we truly are? Holy Mother Church, with a wisdom far surpassing the feeble intellects of our age, forces us—once a year—to stop, to strip away illusions, and to stand naked before the reality of what and who we are. That is what Lent is for. It is the season when we are called to abandon the artificial comforts that cushion our pride and to descend into the depths of our own souls. For unless we know ourselves, we cannot know our need for redemption. And unless we know our need for redemption, we cannot improve ourselves and we cannot weep on Good Friday nor rejoice on Easter Sunday.

The Church, in her collective wisdom gained through centuries of experience, provides the answer: through discipline, through suffering, through the stripping away of self-deception. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are not mere pious customs; they are weapons against the greatest enemy we will ever face—ourselves.

This is why Lent is so necessary. It is a time when we must take up the ancient weapons of the saints and do battle against the false self—the self that is proud, self-indulgent, and blind to its own misery.

True Self-Knowledge: Knowing Ourselves as Children of God

To know our true self is not merely to have an awareness of our strengths and weaknesses, nor is it simply to acknowledge our sins and failings. True self-knowledge is to know who and what we are as a child of God—to see ourselves as He sees us, as He created us, as He calls us to be.

The modern world teaches self-knowledge as a form of self-exploration, self-invention, or self-affirmation. We are told that identity is something we create, that truth is subjective, that we can be whatever we choose to be. But this is an illusion. The true self is not something we construct; it is something we receive. It is a gift, given by God.

A. Created by God, Called by God

From the very beginning, our identity has been given by God Himself. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen 1:26). This is the foundation of who we are—not autonomous individuals, not self-sufficient beings, but creatures formed by the very hands of God, stamped with His divine image, created for communion with Him.

But this is precisely what sin destroyed. Adam and Eve, in their pride, rejected their God-given identity. They desired to be as gods, determining for themselves what is good and evil, seeking self-sufficiency apart from their Creator. And ever since, mankind has been plagued by this same temptation—the temptation to define ourselves apart from God, to fashion our own image instead of conforming to His.

Yet even in our fallen state, God does not abandon us. He calls us back. He calls us to be who He created us to be, to reclaim our true identity as His children. And this is where true self-knowledge begins—not in introspection alone, but in relationship with Him.

B. Self-Knowledge in the Light of God

The world tells us to “look within” to find ourselves – to be “mindful” of our thoughts and feelings. But this is not enough. To truly know oneself, one must look outside of oneself and up—to God. We cannot know who we are until we know whose we are – that is – to know to whom we belong, where we came from and why we are here, in other words our purpose, our raison d’être, our “reason for being.”

This is why self-knowledge – apart from God – always leads to either pride or despair. If we rely solely on our own understanding, we will either deceive ourselves into thinking we are better than we are, or we will fall into despair when we see our weakness, or nihilism at the seeming futility of our existence. But when we see ourselves in the light of God, we see the truth—not only of our nothingness, but of our dignity, our calling, our redemption in Christ.

Consider the example of St. Peter. When Christ performed the miraculous catch of fish, Peter did not respond with excitement or pride. He fell to his knees and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Lk 5:8). He saw himself clearly—not in the light of his own understanding, but in the presence of Christ. And yet, Christ did not reject him. He called him. He lifted him up. “Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men” (Lk 5:10).

So it is with us. True self-knowledge does not leave us in despair, but in humility—a humility that allows us to receive God’s call and follow Him.

Knowing Ourselves in Relation to God

To know oneself is not simply to know one’s individual qualities, talents, or personality traits. It is to know oneself in relation to God. This means understanding three fundamental truths:

1. We are creatures, utterly dependent on God.
2. We are sinners, in need of His mercy.
3. We are called to be saints, destined for eternal communion with Him.

A. We Are Creatures: Humility Before Our Creator

The first truth of self-knowledge is that we did not create ourselves. We are not the source of our own existence. Every breath we take, every moment of life is a gift from God. The modern world rejects this truth, promoting the illusion of self-sufficiency, but the Church reminds us: “What hast thou that thou didst not receive?” (1 Cor 4:7).

This is why pride is so deadly. It blinds us to our dependence on God. The man who thinks he is self-made, who believes he is in control, who imagines that he owes nothing to his Creator—such a man does not know himself at all. He is living in a lie.

This is why Lent is so necessary. It strips us of illusions, forcing us to acknowledge our frailty. Fasting reminds us that we are not sustained by bread alone. The ashes of Ash Wednesday remind us that we are dust. Every mortification, every discipline is a reminder of who we are before God—weak, dependent, yet infinitely loved.

B. We Are Sinners: The Reality of Our Need for Redemption

The second truth is even more difficult to accept. Not only are we creatures, but we are fallen creatures. We are sinners.

The world today hates the word “sin.” It prefers to speak of mistakes, struggles, misunderstandings. But sin is real. And sin is not merely an abstract concept—it is the corruption of the soul, the image of God in us, the turning away from God, the refusal to be who He created us to be in His likeness.

To know oneself is to know one’s sin. This is why the saints, who were the holiest of men and women, were also the most conscious of their unworthiness. They knew that without grace, they were nothing. St. Philip Neri used to pray, “Lord, beware of Philip today, lest he betray Thee.” St. Augustine cried out, “Lord, make me chaste—but not yet.” They knew themselves. And because they knew themselves, they knew their need for God’s mercy.

Lent is a time to enter into this same knowledge. It is a time to stand before God, as the Prodigal Son stood before his father, and say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee” (Lk 15:21). But just as the father in the parable ran to embrace his son, so too does God run to embrace us—if only we have the humility to return to Him.

C. We Are Called to Be Saints: The Destiny of the True Self

The final truth is the most glorious of all. We are not just creatures. We are not just sinners. We are called to be saints.

God did not create us for mediocrity. He created us for holiness. He created us to share in His divine life, to be transformed into His image, to dwell with Him forever ad share in His glory. The true self is not just the person we are now—it is the person God calls us to become.

This is why the Church gives us the disciplines of Lent. Not to punish us, not to burden us, but to free us. Free us from sin, from attachments, from all that keeps us from being who we were created to be. The world tells us that freedom is doing whatever we want. The Church tells us that freedom is becoming who we were made to be. And true freedom requires discipline, purification, and suffering.

This is the great paradox: To know ourselves, we must lose ourselves. To become who we are meant to be, we must die to who we think we are. As Our Lord said, “Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it” (Mt 16:25).

The Three Pillars of Self-Knowledge: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving

The Church, being a wise mother, does not merely tell us to “know ourselves” and leave us floundering. She gives us three practical means to achieve this: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

A. Prayer: Seeing Oneself in the Light of God

Prayer is not about “feeling good.” It is not about emotional experiences or warm sentiments. True prayer is the act of standing before God in all one’s wretchedness, in all one’s smallness, and acknowledging, “Lord, without Thee, I am nothing.”

The saints teach that prayer is a school of humility. The more one prays, the more one sees oneself clearly. This is why the proud do not pray—they cannot bear the sight of their own souls when illuminated by divine light. They would rather remain in darkness than admit their own poverty.

This is also why modern man has abandoned true prayer in favour of “spirituality” and vague sentimentalism. He does not want a God who judges, who commands, who calls him to repentance. He wants a God who affirms, who soothes, who makes no demands. But such a god is an illusion, a projection of the ego, and it has nothing to do with the living God of Scripture and Tradition.

Thus, in Lent, we must return to true prayer—prayer that strips us bare, that makes us see ourselves as we are, and that forces us to cry out, like the publican in the Gospel, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

B. Fasting: The Discipline of the Flesh

The modern world has forgotten the value of fasting because it has forgotten the value of suffering. In an age obsessed with comfort, the very notion of voluntarily embracing discomfort is regarded as insanity.

And yet, the Church commands it. Why? Because fasting does something profound to the soul. It weakens the flesh, it subdues the passions, it makes us aware of our dependence on God. The man who fasts learns self-mastery; the man who refuses to fast remains a slave to his appetites.

There is a reason why the demons fear fasting. They know that a man who can say no to his stomach can also say no to sin. The saints tell us that fasting is a powerful means of conquering the passions. It exposes our attachments, reveals our weaknesses, and brings us face to face with the reality of our own limitations.

Thus, in Lent, fasting is not optional—it is essential. Without it, we will never learn self-control, and without self-control, we will never overcome ourselves.

C. Almsgiving: The Remedy for Selfishness

Finally, there is almsgiving—the forgotten virtue. In a world consumed by materialism, charity is seen as either a tax write-off or a sentimental act of self-congratulation. But true almsgiving is a death to self. It is an act of renunciation, a giving away of what we cling to, a breaking of the chains of selfishness.

Almsgiving is not just about money. It is about giving of oneself—one’s time, one’s patience, one’s kindness. It is about seeing Christ in one’s neighbour and acting accordingly. It is the final blow to the false self, the self that seeks only its own interests.

The Liturgy: The Great Teacher of Self-Knowledge

Lent is not merely a season of personal discipline; it is a journey through the Church’s liturgy. Each Mass, each reading, each chant is designed to lead us deeper into the mystery of our redemption.

On Ash Wednesday, the Church reminds us of our mortality: “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” These words are an antidote to pride, a stark reminder that all human glory is fleeting.

On the First Sunday of Lent, we see Christ in the desert, facing the temptations of the devil. He overcomes what Adam failed to overcome. This Gospel is a lesson in self-mastery, in obedience, in the necessity of resisting the deceits of the world.

As Lent progresses, the liturgy becomes more solemn. The statues are veiled, the chants become more sorrowful, the prayers more intense. The Church is preparing us for the great confrontation of Good Friday—the moment when we must stand before the Crucified Christ and ask ourselves: Do I truly know what He has done for me? Have I understood the price of my redemption?

Only the soul that has passed through the trials of Lent, that has confronted its own sinfulness, that has truly wept for its failings—only that soul will know the full joy of Easter morning.

The Cross and the Resurrection: The Ultimate Self-Revelation

The Christian life, my dear brethren, is not a philosophy or a moral system. It is not an ideology or a set of social teachings. It is, at its core, a participation in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This means that Lent is not just about self-examination for its own sake—it is about preparing ourselves for the Cross, so that we might truly share in the Resurrection.

For modern man, suffering is something to be avoided at all costs. The world tells us to seek pleasure, comfort, and affirmation, and to reject anything that disturbs our sense of well-being. But the Church tells us something radically different. The Church tells us that suffering is necessary. Not because suffering is good in itself, but because through suffering, we are purified. Through suffering we come to recognize our helplessness and need for God. Through suffering, we come to know ourselves. Through suffering we come to know our strength. Through suffering, we are drawn out of our selfishness and into the mystery of Christ’s self-giving love. 

If we do not suffer with Christ, we cannot rise with Him. This is the lesson of the liturgy. The journey of Lent is a journey to Calvary, and there is no shortcut. Many souls want the joy of Easter without the agony of Good Friday, but that is not how Christianity works. To rise with Christ, we must first be crucified with Him.

The Hard Truth: We Are Either Saints or Slaves

Now, there is a very simple truth that many do not want to hear, but it must be said: You are either becoming a saint, or you are becoming a slave. There is no middle ground.

What do I mean by this? I mean that every choice we make is leading us in one of two directions: either toward God or away from Him. Every indulgence in sin, every act of self-deception, every compromise with the world makes us more enslaved to our body, the flesh, more enslaved to the devil, more enslaved to the illusions of our own self-sufficiency.

On the other hand, every act of discipline, every moment of self-denial, every sacrifice for the love of God makes us more free—free from the tyranny of our passions, free from the lies of the world, free from the chains of sin.

This is why the saints embraced suffering, not because they were masochists, but because they understood that the soul that refuses to suffer for Christ will inevitably suffer for the world. The man who refuses to fast for God – will become a slave to his stomach. The man who refuses to mortify his pride – will become a slave to the opinions of others. The man who refuses to give of himself in charity – will become a slave to his own greed and selfishness.

Lent is our opportunity to break free. It is our opportunity to make war against the false self, against the old Adam who clings to us like a corpse. And we make war not by our own strength, but by the grace of God, through the weapons of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

The Victory of the Resurrection: The Fruit of True Penance

Now, if we do this—if we truly embrace Lent as the Church intends—then when Easter morning comes, we will experience something that most of the world does not: true joy.

Not the fleeting, artificial happiness of the world, but the deep, unshakable joy that comes from having passed through death into life. This is what St. Paul means when he says, “If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him” (2 Tim 2:12).

Easter is not just a day on the calendar. It is a reality in the soul. And only the soul that has suffered with Christ, that has confronted itself in Lent, that has wept at the foot of the Cross, will be able to stand before the empty tomb with a heart that is truly alive.

For those who have not lived Lent well, Easter will come and go as just another day. But for those who have fought the good fight, Easter will be an explosion of grace, a foretaste of the glory that awaits those who persevere to the end.

Conclusion: The Call to Choose—Now

So, my dear brethren, the choice is before us. Lent has begun. Will we use it? Will we take up our cross daily and follow Christ? Or will we pass through these forty days unchanged, as if they were nothing?

Make no mistake: how we live this Lent will determine how we experience Easter. If we do not mortify ourselves, if we do not fast, if we do not pray, if we do not give alms, if we do not make war on sin—then Good Friday will come, and we will not weep. Easter will come, and we will not rejoice.

But if we embrace this season with humility and courage—if we allow ourselves to be stripped, purified, and emptied—then, when the bells of Easter ring out and the Gloria resounds once more, we will know in our hearts that we have truly passed from death to life.

Let us then ask Our Blessed Mother, who stood at the foot of the Cross with perfect faith, to intercede for us. Let us ask her to help us know ourselves as we truly are, that we may know our need for her Son, and that we may one day share in His Resurrection.

In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

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Lent Conferences 2025

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