“What are you giving up for Lent?” As a chubby child, this question struck terror into my heart because I loved everything fattening, including chocolates and cookies, and let’s not forget pizza and pasta.  

My mother was an expert on dieting, which basically involved starving herself. She was a schoolteacher, and everyday her lunch bag contained a sad hard-boiled egg and an apple. Before long, my sister and I joined our mom in her weight-loss schemes, which all eventually failed.  

For me, Lent was another dreary diet, where you had to “give up” something you loved, although I had no idea why. The obvious choice for children was sweets, which explains why Easter baskets overflow with chocolate rabbits and jelly beans.  

Unfortunately, I pictured God as an angry old man in the sky, equipped with a thunderbolt he could hurl at me, when I did something wrong. I certainly did not want to provoke him by sneaking a cookie, and when I fell off the Lenten wagon now and again, I sank into a pit of guilt.  

Even as an adult, the mention of Lent has sometimes made my stomach drop. I have wanted so badly to “do it right” and stick to the plan. Some years I started off giving up a bunch of things, including social media and snacks, but by week three, the whole plan started fizzling out.  

These days, I am trying a different Lenten tactic, using Christ’s own words as guidance. You see, I believe the conversation between the Resurrected Christ and Peter on the shore of Lake Tiberias illuminates a sacred path to Lent. Here is the Son of God asking Peter, a mere human, “Do you love me?”  

Jesus asked him three times, because Peter had denied him three times, but I also believe Jesus was emphasizing a crucial truth. God loves us dearly, and he yearns for our love in return. Peter answers fervently, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus replies simply, “Feed my sheep.” 

During Lent, we can dedicate ourselves to caring for Christ’s suffering sheep, who are described in Matthew’s Gospel. They are hungry, imprisoned, sick and naked. “If you did it to the least of these little ones, you did it to me,” said Jesus. 

Author Caryll Houselander reminds us, “We can always find Christ on earth.”  

We find him in the lambs he loves so much, who are the broken-down and the broken-hearted. We see him in the man who has given up hope in prison. He is the child who cries at night for his father. He is a dying person who is scared and alone.  

Sometimes we don’t have to look far to find a suffering lamb. He may be a neglected toddler in our own home. He may be an elderly parishioner, who cannot leave his apartment. He may be a friend who has lost a child.  

I believe Lent will have deeper meaning if we imagine Christ each day asking us, “Do you love me?” Then we can decide how to show him our love that day. No more sad faces, no more dieting, no more fear of failing.  

Instead, we can go through Lent with a heart overflowing with tenderness for the Lord’s precious lambs. We can preface every sacrifice, every prayer, every act of kindness with the words, “Jesus, I’m doing this for you, because I love you.”