"Spiritual closeness and physical weakness" St Michael’s Lent, a first-hand account

I share my experience of following in the footsteps of Saint Francis of Assisi.

“Our culture says do not self deny anything, indulge every single emotion the moment it comes to you and in fact anyone who tells you you shouldn’t do something, that you have some predilection to do, or that formulates some sort of arousal or happiness in you, they are phobic, and they should be hated.

It is no surprise that the ditching of self denial rituals has lead to negative mental health consequences.”

This was Malcolm Collins, the author of ‘The Pragmatist's Guide to Crafting Religion’, speaking on Louise Perry’s Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast about the long tradition of self denial rituals in traditional religions.

I listened to this episode just over half way through this year’s St. Michael’s Lent, and this opening gambit struck a chord with me.

The relentless nature of modern life can come with many upside’s, but also many downside’s. One negative, which is cloaked as a positive in modern society, is the insistence that nothing carries a taboo and denying yourself of pleasure is repressive and mentally unhealthy.

As a man in his early 30’s who has previously taken full advantage of this irresponsible advice, I had come to realise (through mostly painful experiences) that the opposite is in fact true.

Lent is obviously the Catholic version of what Malcolm would call a ‘self denial ritual’ and it is something that even when I didn’t practise the faith, I would use as a time to re adjust and re align.

This year as I entered almost four years since my reversion back to the Catholic faith, I felt it necessary to indulge in some classic self-denial and take on St Michael’s Lent, a practice I had never previously heard of until this summer. 

St. Michael’s Lent is a 40-day, Lent-like period of prayer, asceticism, and fraternity in preparation for the Feast of St Michael the Archangel (29 September).

It was first observed by St. Francis of Assisi. During this time, he would fast, abstain, and engage in penances and mortifications to discipline himself, acquire the virtues, and honour God. In fact, it was while he was engaged in this ‘St. Michael's Lent’ at La Verna on Mount Penna, Arezzo, Italy in 1224 that he received the stigmata.

For the modern man, unlike St. Francis, the devotion is mapped out through an app, called Exodus 90, which is the number 1 Catholic Men’s App.

The app connects you to a community and you can buddy up with an ‘anchor’ with whom you can check-in with regularly and someone who can keep you accountable.

The app lays out the various disciplines that you can tick off each day. The disciplines include things like 20 minutes of silent prayer, a morning and nightly examine, cold showers, no meat and fasting days as well as a daily reading and reflection of a book within the Bible, which during this term was the Book of Tobit.

The majority of these disciplines were similar those within a standard lenten practice, however there were two rather unique elements to the six week devotion that have ended up making a lasting impression on me.

Those elements were:

• A one hour night vigils that took place every Friday morning

• The removal of all social media and news apps from your phone

Firstly, the night vigil. This was something I had never done before. I had never arose during the night to spend an hour in concentrated prayer, but helpfully the app leads you through the process, which includes a reading, psalms, hymns and moments for reflection and private prayer.

I was sceptical going into the first night, and due to an unplanned visit from a friend before bedtime, I forgot to set an alarm. However my guardian angel was obviously looking out for me that night, and for some unknown reason I woke up at bang-on 2am.

It was ever so strange, I remember looking at my phone clock in disbelief. I couldn’t put my head back down after that.

I went downstairs and began the vigil, and I must admit, it was the closest I have felt to God in a very long time. The combination of the quiet, darkness and the readings and psalms that littered the hour vigil allowed me to declutter my mind, and pray the most clearest I have prayed for a very, very long time.

The constant battle with the threat of falling back to sleep during the allocated five minute periods of silence allowed me to be laser focused in prayer and really engage with the readings.

I felt like the vigil was a genuine spiritual experience, and it added an extra layer to the devotion - it separated it from the regular lenten practices and gave an extra gravity to my prayer life.

The other discipline which has left an impression since, was the deletion of social media and news apps.

Since finishing the devotion, I briefly reinstalled the apps onto my phone, but I now have deleted almost all of them, and just use the desktop version if I need to contact people. The deletion of the apps made me realise how much I unnecessarily used them.

Even as I entered the 5th week of the lent, I would still routinely pick up my phone to look at it, even know I knew I had no social media or news apps on there to look at. It showed me that my social media use wasn’t as casual as I thought it was, and that I had developed a bit of an addiction to the immediacy of garnering information - the habit had become an unnecessary distraction.

The final positive from the experience is the band of brothers that I was able to communicate with whilst going through the Lent. This was a very unexpected, but incredibly welcome part of the experience. I was able to chat and share experiences through the app with a collection of men who were also trying to work through the devotion. 

There is a weekly call with your fraternity each week, and chat group within the app to share updates, prayer requests, encouragement and advice.

Overall St Michael’s Lent was an extremely positive experience. Not only did I come out of it more spiritually awakened, and closer to God, but I also was able to identify weaknesses in my own physical life.

The Lent starts at the height of summer, and usually a time where I feel furthest from my faith, as it’s the mid point between Easter and Christmas and the children are off school and the holidays are in full swing. So this devotion allowed me to fully realign at a time when I usually feel distance and distracted. 

I’d highly recommend it, it was truly a blessing.