Self-Love in the Season of Lent

“Do you really think God wants you to beat yourself up even more?”

It was a good question. Being penitential doesn’t mean being masochistic. I was already ‘suffering’ and my friend was worried that my desire to embrace some form of penance for Lent would put me over the edge.

So this Lent, especially if you’re going through a tough time, I want to encourage you all to love yourselves more. This strategy may not sound in keeping with Lent, but bear with me. I know we live in an age of narcissism. We have never before taken and distributed so many photos of ourselves. Every person can (and usually does) have at least one internet landing page devoted to themselves, be it Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. More and more, we are fashioning our lives according to what we want and how we want people to see us. We control our ‘image’ by posting selfies - often unflattering ones, mind you – and we publish information about our lives as if we are all celebrities. We are both masters and victims of social propaganda.

Despite all this, I have concluded that we don’t love ourselves enough. I don’t mean we don’t worship ourselves enough. We shouldn’t worship ourselves at all. And I don’t mean we should indulge our vanity, boost our pride, or spoil ourselves. By love, I mean to desire and act for the best. When we love someone we try to say and do what is good for them, even if it sometimes displeases them or seems harsh. We stop our friends from drinking too much alcohol, we discipline our children when they do wrong, we advise against an outfit that is unflattering, and the list goes on. And this is how we must love ourselves. This is the love we lack.

Instead of posting selfies throughout the day and feeding off the ‘low-calorie’ ‘likes’ and false flattery from fellow narcissists, we need to appraise ourselves and get our houses in order. The answer to our narcissistic behaviour is not go off on crusades to save the world or devote our lives to charity work but to take responsibility for our own lives and make the very best of them. Our first responsibility is to ourselves, and it is that responsibility that then allows us to be less selfish and help others. Just as we are instructed to fit our own oxygen masks first in an emergency on an aeroplane, so too we should take care of ourselves first in other matters.

I will never forget being told by the refugees I was trying to help in a refugee camp that I should go home. Go home, they said, and live the life of which we have been deprived. Live it for us. They didn’t mean that I should go home and spoil myself in a selfish manner. What they meant was that I shouldn’t take my life for granted, that when God blesses us we should be grateful and use those gifts for good rather than brushing them aside.

As we progress through Lent, we should not use it as an opportunity for self-abuse but for self-love – the sort of ‘tough love’ that recognises that giving up something sinful like gossip or porn is a lifelong duty and not something we just do during Lent. Love isn’t about throwing out the rule book, it’s about applying the rules for the good of everyone. And that love, that charity, begins at home. If we truly love ourselves, we will not delude ourselves that giving up a sin is the same as abstinence or that good works done ‘on the street corner’ equal penitence. We do not love ourselves when we adopt a ‘Fakebook’ façade or go through the motions of our faith.

The next time you are tempted to take a ‘selfie’ take a look in the mirror instead. Look into your eyes and ask yourself what you really need. Do you need a dozen ‘likes’ and half a dozen flattering comments about your new outfit, or do you need to sit down and have a real conversation with a friend, the sort of friend who loves you enough to warn you against doing something stupid? If you must use your smart ‘phone to take a photo instead of calling someone, take a photo of someone or something else and send it off with a personal message. Real love may be sparing in compliments but it is rich in encouragement and inspiration.

This Lent, let’s try to recognise the way we corrupt good things to the detriment of ourselves and others. We don’t abstain from meat because it is bad – quite the contrary, it is good for us – and we don’t give up chocolate or wine or some other pleasure because it is bad. Sometimes, though, good things get in the way of living a good life, or we use them in a way that is unhealthy or even sinful, e.g. eating to the point of gluttony. Taking photos of ourselves and posting them for far-off family and friends to see is often a good thing, but you can have too much of a good thing….

So, if Lent seems all too much this year, perhaps you should ask yourself if you’re giving up the right thing. You may need some chocolate or wine to get you through a tough time. There may be something else in your life you need to sacrifice.