Giving up donuts was my big penance this Lent. Oh, I also did things like go to daily Mass a little more frequently, say a morning rosary with my wife, hit the stations on Friday, and read the readings of the Day with my children. But it was that Winchells sign that kept reminding me it was Lent.
A few weeks ago I actually walked into one. I stared for several minutes at those beautiful trays of glistening, glazed tempters of the flesh, those smooth, chocolate-covered delectable delights, and those plump, round, jelly and cream-filled creations that somehow make you rather die than diet. (Boy, I hope there are donuts in Heaven.) I wondered if just the sensual joy I experienced in savoring the wonderful smell was somehow breaking, or at least hedging, my Lenten no-donuts observance.
I ordered a cup of coffee, gave one last longing look at the glass case and walked out into the wilderness of Marine Drive, proud of myself that I had faced those Old-Fashioned Glazed and could still walk away. It was all but four minutes of face to face temptation, but it felt like 40 days and 40 nights. At the top of the two stairs that led from the door to the parking lot I felt like saying “Be gone from me Satan, for God can make bread from these very donuts, er, I mean, stones.”
And now it’s Easter and we’re probably going to go out for donuts after Mass. But what’s kind of interesting is that after six weeks of doing without, I no longer have the craving for those little sugar-covered, early-death, deep-fried lumps of nutrition-less calories. Hmmm, I wonder if that will work for my other vices?
I’m sure I’m just discovering something here on an ever so humble scale that any student of the spiritual life already knows. Seems that doing without something, if done for spiritual ends, instead of building up suppressed needs as pop psychologists would have us believe, can actually liberate one from the oppressive slavery to those needs, be it smoking, alcohol, gluttony, slothfulness, drugs, pornography, etc. Would urge you to give it a try. Start with the donuts, though.
Tim Rohr
April 23, 2000