Lent 2023: Cultivating Virtue in the Desert

“Be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights in the desert, where he was also tempted by Satan (Matthew 4:1-11). Similarly, each year, we enter into about 40 days of prayer, penance, and almsgiving in Lent—our own annual desert (where we also face temptation).

This Lent, the Catholic Women in Business team is praying and talking about Jesus’ desert (both his literal time in the desert and his passion and death). We’re also meditating on our own deserts (both during Lent and throughout our lives). Throughout this Liturgical season, our writers will be sharing reflections and insights on the virtues Jesus exemplified in his life and death—and how our own “deserts” can help us grow in those virtues as well.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) defines virtue as “an habitual and firm disposition to do the good” that “allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions” (1803).

In other words, virtue helps us to make good decisions, to be aligned with God’s will. Through the three theological virtues (faith, hope, and love—the foundation of our moral life, CCC 1813) and the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance), we serve him faithfully.

The goal of growing in virtue, the Catechism notes, is “to become like God” (1803). As we imitate Jesus by going through our own 40-day desert, may we also imitate his virtue.