Last Lent I found myself at the Abbey of Regina Laudis during what would turn out to be the beginning of a spiritual tsunami. It's bewildering, confusing, and emotionally draining to be awakened from so many forms of sleep and unawareness all at once and whose extent I was . . . well, unaware of. The pain has been sharp and immediate, the beauty astonishing but presenting itself in its own good time.

During Lent, suffering and penitence are more than just "themes," more than some seasonal leitmotif. The Stations of the Cross remind us of this in no uncertain terms.

At the Abbey, over a breakfast without coffee, talking about Lenten sacrifice, a friend of mine remarked on what a Jesuit friend of his once said: "Why not give up other things? Like self-loathing."

In Suffering, Louis Évely, a Belgian Catholic writer and former priest, observes:  "God does not need our sacrifices. He does not like his children to torment themselves, hurt themselves, become gloomy. He loves only to give, and if he calls us to loving and voluntary sacrifice, it is because he is so much a Father that he wants us to share everything: he wants to invite us to know his joy, to imitate his generosity. He wants to give us the capacity of giving . . .

"Sacrifice is necessary, but one must sacrifice only through love. Sacrifice is not what costs us a painful and rancorous renouncement, a destruction, an immolation . . . It is just the contrary. The most joyful and happiest act in the world is to enter into the divine world of generosity and love, to enter into God's game which is to give, to become capable of love and giving."