Can A Lenten Birthday Be a Happy One?

Jasmine Kuzner asks: just how festive should a Lenten birthday be?

If I live to be one hundred, only four of my birthdays will have not happened in Lent. Six of them will occur on Ash Wednesday. The rest of my ninety birthdays will have taken place well within the Lenten season. This doesn’t mean that I (or anyone else in the same boat) have only a few times in one hundred years to properly celebrate a birthday. As anyone who's ever eaten zeppole on St. Joseph’s day can tell you, the Church allows for celebrations even during Lent. Nevertheless, no amount of delicious little zeppole consumed on March 19th will curb sympathetic smiles that appear on the lips of Catholic friends when they find out I’m a Lenten birthday celebrator.

As fellow moms who may have a Lenten birthday in their own household to figure out, their smiles appear in support of finding the answers to questions that Lenten birthdays can pose. Whether it’s a question of moving the date of the actual celebration, or changing the ingredients for a birthday meal, Lenten babies can find themselves in a hasty “birthday celebration negotiation mode” as soon as priests start to don their purple vestments.

In our earnest attempt to make Lenten sacrifices and celebrate the day we were born, we have to stop and wonder, just how happy should a Lenten birthday be?

plain muffin with birthday candle in it

The happiness of a birthday can be measured by the extras. An extra-big cappuccino, an extra-lush bouquet of flowers, or an extra-rich dessert of cream, berries, and chocolate are what would put it over the top for me. In contrast, the effort to strip our lives of excess is the very heartbeat of our Lenten practice. We eat less to let our bodies feel the clarity that hunger can reveal. We give more to know the humility of depending on God alone. We pray more to see only those things we really need.

Being forced to find ways to go for the extras and simultaneously get rid of them led to a total reboot of the way I went about celebrating special occasions. Before I made a call on how happy a special day should be, I had to take a step back to get a handle on why I celebrated it in the first place.

With God as the fulcrum of a Lenten birthday celebration, efforts for a meaningful Lent will never be offset. #catholicmom

kids at a birthday party

When our kids were little, my husband and I went big on the birthdays. We booked three hour time blocks at kids’ gyms, threw good old fashioned home bashes with customized Pokémon cakes, and punctuated it all with beautifully wrapped presents. Our happiness to throw these parties (perhaps stirred by a chronic illness of mine that makes it difficult to carry healthy pregnancies to term) was born of positive intention. Our children are gifts. We wanted to celebrate them.

As our children received their first sacraments, a shift in who we were celebrating occurred. The energy we put into throwing parties for their Baptisms, first Reconciliations, holy Communions, and Confirmations was sourced from one inspiration: to give glory to God and His Divine grace bestowed on our child through the sacrament received. Instead of celebrating the gift of our child, our hearts delighted in the ultimate Giver. Instead of toasting to the created being, we rejoiced in the one Creator. To give glory and gratitude to God became our singular reason to celebrate. With God as the source of happiness, finding ways to have a happy Lenten birthday became a piece of cake.

Happiness begins when I realize to Whom gratitude truly belongs. On my birthday, I do two things to show gratitude: Confession and Mass. Sometime during the week leading up to my birthday, I’ll go to Confession to clean up my soul just like I clean up my house before a party. Receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation prepares all the rooms in my heart to receive the gifts that God—and all the people He may act through—might want to give me on my birthday.

On my actual birthday I’ll go to Mass, preferably first thing in the morning. I’ll offer my Mass intention for my parents, husband, and children. I’ll praise God for another year of earthly life. I’ll reflect on my blessings and rejoice for the grace given during times of trial in my past year. If a friend drops by with a present, I will open it and thank God for the gift of their friendship. If we go out to eat, I will pick a meal according to any Lenten resolutions I have made and relish in its tastiness, giving thanks to God for how delicious food can be (unless it’s Ash Wednesday, when I’ll probably indulge in extra time to take a walk or read a book instead).

In this way, Lenten birthday celebrators are just like everyone else who use this time of year to ask if their actions are ones that put Christ at the center of their lives. With God as the fulcrum of a Lenten birthday celebration, efforts for a meaningful Lent will never be offset. Lenten birthday celebrators should then never hesitate in having a big scoop of happiness to go along with their birthday. Anything else is just icing.