Fasting from indifference, feasting on love

One of the things I have realised about working in the humanitarian sector is that I can quite easily drift in to ungenerosity. When you spend your days working to alleviate suffering, it's easy to end up feeling that this ticks off the generosity box in your life without even realising it. The reality is that personal generosity and kindness is a choice, it has to be intentional. And if I allow myself to think that my job covers it, then I am gravely mistaken.

This week, entering lent, I read this article summarizing Pope Francis' Lenten Address from 2015, it was so helpful for me; I clicked through and read the full address. So often people discuss what they will 'give up' for lent. I understand how this is helpful, and I don't want to disparage it at all, but it is quite an individualistic way of thinking. Instead Pope Francis encourages us to fast from indifference. As the article states 'whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God's voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades...we end up becoming incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own.'

Ouch.

How easy it is, to tick that 'compassion' box through my work and allow myself to think that there is no need for more kindness, more generosity. Or even, to go further, and allow myself to feel entitled to other people's kindness towards me because of the hard job I do. How easy it is to see our direct debits to charities or churches exiting our accounts each month and think we have it covered.

So this lent, I am following Pope Francis' advice and trying to fast from indifference beyond my job and my direct debits. The '40 Acts' movement is another wonderful way to do this - using lent to actively demonstrate kindness to those around us.

'When we fast from this indifference, we can begin to feast on love.'

If you would like to read the articles I'm referring to, they can be found here:

http://time.com/3714056/pope-francis-lent-2015-fasting/

and here:

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/lent/documents/papa-francesco_20141004_messaggio-quaresima2015.html