There is an interesting story about when U.S. Grant first met with President Lincoln in Washington. Grant arrived in Washington to no welcoming party (due to logistical error). He failed in his attempts to meet General Halleck and eventually took his son and his small suitcase to check into his hotel. It was only at dinner that word began to spread among the people that General Grant, the hero of Vicksburg, was in their presence, and a commotion began to spread in the city. Compare this to the time when General McClellan first arrived in Washington. He came with a staff that consisted of 25 wagons (each side of the wagon had inscribed in large gold letters: Baggage, Headquarters, Army of the Potomac). While books have been written about the differences between these generals in terms of how they went about their duty as generals, the contrast about their arrivals speaks to both the pomp of McClellan and the simplicity of Grant.
During the season of Lent, we are called to live more simply. One way that we can live more simply is to discipline our use of time. We are used to filling our time with various distractions, only to discover that at the end of the day we either have no time for prayer or we are too tired for prayer. By living more simply during this season, we will be shocked at how much time is truly in 24 hours. A second way to live simply is to buy less of what we want and do not need. I am talking about times when we find ourselves at Target or on Amazon and we talk ourselves into purchases we do not actually need. (I will admit this is the reason why, when I move, I have two bins of “to read” books.) By not buying everything we want, we not only learn discipline, but we also have more to give away to those who cannot even afford the necessities of life. Lastly, embrace the silence of the season. Cardinal Sarah wrote a wonderful book titled The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise where he talks about the need for silence in our world because, “Noise is a deceptive, addictive, and false tranquilizer. The tragedy of our world is never better summed up than in the fury of senseless noise that stubbornly hates silence. This age detests the things that silence brings us to: encounter, wonder and kneeling before God.”