So our Lenten self-denial will be valueless if it is done just to prove to ourselves what we can do if we try.  That would result only in self-admiration and complacency and would entirely fail to bring us any nearer to God.  But the purpose of self-denial is to weaken the power of our lower self only so that we can love God more.

And that we shall do if we treat self-denial as an opportunity to share Our Lord’s hardships which he undertook for our sakes.  The cost of his mission to save us was great and varied.  “Foxes have holes,” he said, “and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head” (RSV, Matthew 8:20).

This Lent, therefore, is an opportunity to prove our love Our Blessed Lord by regular acts of self-sacrifice.  They may not cost much by comparison, but because they involve successive acts of the will, they cost something.

Ideally, of course, the whole of our life should be given and dedicated to God, but particular acts of self-denial, made with the purpose of sharing his privations, show our love for him in a particular and practical way as nothing else can.  We are then in a small but true way entering into his own earthly life.