And now it’s almost Lent again, and, as always when a penitential season comes around, I am once again asking myself: what should I, as someone with a long history of EDs, do about the whole fasting thing?

I addressed this in a previous post, the tl;dr of which is: most people say that, if you have an ED, you shouldn’t fast from food, but find a different way to fast; to which the voice in my head replies: why? Isn’t it wimpy for me, as someone who struggled for 15+ years but is currently physically fine and in maintenance mode, to claim exemption from fasting? Isn’t that cheating? Wouldn’t the great ascetic saints, the ones who subsisted off Holy Communion alone, scoff at me? Wouldn’t the desert fathers laugh and roll their eyes? “My poor wittle mental health!, fasting might hurt my feewings!, I don’t wike myself, wah wah 🥺”, isn’t that pathetic of me?

(And for the record, as I’m sure anyone with an ED will understand: the voice in my head is only this critical with me — it is not talking about you (it’s like, “other people are allowed to exist, eat, feel, and be vulnerable, but NOT you!!, it’s lame and gross when you do it!”, etc., etc.; we’re all familiar with its double standard, aren’t we?). So I’m not making fun of anyone else, or calling anyone else pathetic — just narrating my own little weird mental process, which maybe some of you can relate to. If you have an ED history, I do NOT think that YOU should fast from food — you are obviously exempt. It’s only me who’s the fat pathetic loser, according to the inner voice.)

So: I’m always wondering: should I fast or no? Am I being hard on myself, or being too soft? What do I do??

Thankfully, I heard a really great sermon on Lenten practices recently, which shed some light on the matter. So here I am to write a follow-up to the post linked above, and to hopefully put this Question That Keeps Me Up At Night to rest once and for all.

In his sermon, this priest clarified some things about Lenten practices. For most of you Catholic readers, these will probably not be news, but I am an idiot and a bad Catholic who needs things boiled down to the basics and spelled out and at like a fourth grade reading level, so for me it was groundbreaking. I had never heard it explained this succinctly before.

Penance and mortification: both are things we resolve to do during Lent. Up until now, I’ve had a pretty nebulous idea of what these were. I thought that they were the same thing, essentially, and tbh never considered that that might not be true.

But actually, if I understood this priest correctly, there are differences between “penance” and “mortification.” The former is a work that we do to atone for past sins. The latter is a discomfort or inconvenience that we voluntarily take on in order to fight ongoing sin/temptation — to counteract a disordered tendency in our current life.

And he went on to explain that, to really have a fruitful Lent, we should practice these in a targeted, specific way, unique to our own personal situation. It’s not just “oh, I’m a sinner so I’ll give up sugar to make myself uncomfortable.” Lent is not about just being uncomfortable for the sake of being uncomfortable. It’s about removing obstacles to God’s grace. Which means that it’s much more useful if we look at our unique sins, imperfections, and bad habits, and tailor our Lenten practices to work against those.

Wow! No one had ever explained it to me like this before. W/r/t Lent, I’d always just been told “prayer, fasting, almsgiving.” Which is obviously good advice. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are things we should do more of, especially during Lent. But, this priest explained in his sermon, for maximum spiritual benefit, each individual should practice them in an intentional, specific, targeted way.

I’m just a stupid layperson, so what do I know, but: I feel like that’s a really important addendum.

It’s not necessarily a great idea to just tell everyone, in general: “you should fast.” Because what if someone is breastfeeding, or has a history of EDs (it’s me, I am both), or something else like that. “Just fast” is not good advice for that person. Similarly, “just give alms” might not be the best advice for someone with no money to give. Obviously we are all obligated to give money, but “just give more” isn’t always an option for everyone. Some people have to find other ways to be charitable. Humans are messy creatures and life is weird. So it’s complicated sometimes.

Which is why I asked in my previous post: what should someone in my situation do for Lent?

Thanks to this good priest, I see now that our penances and mortifications not only may, but should be tailored to our unique spiritual state, our unique weaknesses.

Maybe not every mortification is equally spiritually beneficial for every person. Someone who struggles with sloth might want to try waking up early and being productive every morning; someone who struggles to sit still in silence and solitude might want to schedule a block of quiet prayer time daily.

Fasting from food is a good practice for someone who has trouble practicing self-control with food. But if someone has the opposite problem, and has trouble letting go of control around food — well, it probably wouldn’t be spiritually beneficial for that person to fast from food, would it?

Which is not to say that I personally intend never to fast from food again. One day when I’m not pregnant or nursing, I look forward to fasting from food in some kind of way (a part of me looks forward to it a little too eagerly, if we’re being honest). But as it is right now, nursing a baby who has a sensitive gut, while also trying to sort of normalize after pregnancy, my diet and body image and mental health are such a touchy balancing act, which I am managing very carefully by only eating safe things at safe times — it’s just a real precarious tower of cards situation, right now — that I wonder if fasting from food just isn’t the wisest idea.

So what will I do then? Well, that will require me to look at myself and my life and figure it out.

But I’m glad that I can stop stressing about this particular question — at least, for this Lent. You’ll probably catch me yakking about it again come Advent.