When Illness Is Your Fast: A Lenten Reflection on Grace and Weakness

When Illness Is Your Fast: A Lenten Reflection on Grace and Weakness

By:  a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures

 Dear Henry,

Once again, it is Lent, and once again, it has gone somewhere I did not expect.

I began Ash Wednesday thinking this year’s theme might be simple: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” I thought perhaps I would follow the Pope’s gentle suggestion: To fast from negative comments, to fast from correction, and to fast from the need to win small arguments.

Instead, Lent arrived with Mencius reminding me that the "evil of men is that they like to be teachers of others." With J.K. Rowling insisting that we must "accept the reality of other people". And with Mother Angelica’s blunt wisdom ringing in my ears: The witness of a Christian is holding your temper when you want to choke somebody.

Let me explain.

There has been a wonderful resurgence of visible, traditional Catholicism,  kneelers, veils, communion on the tongue, and disciplined fasting. None of these things is wrong, and they are all beautiful expressions of our faith. But they do not transfer easily to the unwell.

My orthopedic and neurological limitations already make fasting complicated. This year, with Graves’ disease added to the mix, even abstinence has narrowed. No seafood. No soy. An allergy to wine. I woke up on Ash Wednesday feeling almost “uncatholic,” as though I had somehow been removed from the choreography of the season.

And when you are outside the choreography, you feel like you are outside the community.

Dorothy Day called it the “Long Loneliness.” Church is meant to soothe that. But when every infographic and reel urges you to lean in harder, push further, discipline yourself more strictly, it is easy for Lent to become less about repentance and more about comparison. Less about grace and more about capacity.

Then came Mass on Ash Wednesday.

I arrived early and chose a pew I could navigate easily. I did not bring my cane, ego again. A couple arrived late. I was asked to move. Bags were left on the floor. Kneelers stayed down. During ashes and communion, what had been manageable became a small obstacle course. And I wanted to be angry.

Fortunately, the Holy Spirit was quick.

If I had used my cane, none of this would have unfolded the same way. People would have seen what I try to minimize. They would have made space. They would have helped. You cannot be upset that people overlook what you insist on hiding.

And so here is the lesson this Lent keeps pressing gently against my pride:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9

If illness is already your fast, then perhaps your Lent is not about adding more, but about allowing your weakness to be seen. Not with belligerence. Not by demanding special treatment. And most certainly not by performing suffering.

Simply existing within the Grace of God as you are,  as part of the Body of Christ, without shame.

Because He has “I will seek the lost, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.” Ezekiel 34:16

Because even when we are in the desert, He comes toward us. 

Our place in the world is unimportant. It is only His place that matters, and He has promised to always be with us.

xoxo a.d. elliott

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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life

She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.

You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.

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