Making a Difference

St. Michael’s Lent: A Little Fasting, A Lot of Brotherhood, and Maybe Even Some Exodus 90

How does a group of 17 guys decide that giving up meat, taking cold showers, sitting in silence for 30 minutes a day, and even getting up at 2 a.m. to pray sounds like a cool thing to do?

Ask the guys in Alpha Males, a spin-off group of men who went through Alpha.

Somehow, St. Michael’s Lent came up in their group text. “We saw it and thought, pretty cool! Something that’s something challenging—let’s do it!” says group member Sam Aidoo.

And so they did. St. Michael’s Lent is a 40-day period of prayer, fasting, and penance that runs from the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 15 through the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel on September 29. The tradition dates back centuries and was especially embraced by St. Francis of Assisi.

It’s a little mini-Lent in the middle of the year, but don’t expect the guys to complain too much about the fasting, because, Sam says, many of them are already disciplined dudes. The fasting is limited to Wednesdays and Fridays, when they also abstain from meat. So far, no great wailing and gnashing of teeth has been reported!

The cold showers, however, are another story.

Wednesday and Friday cold showers have proven to be the toughest physical challenge for Sam, who admits it’s a little ridiculous that something as ordinary as taking a shower can suddenly require so much mental preparation. (He says he usually does some of his best thinking in a warm shower, so losing that quiet, comfortable thinking time has taken some getting used to.)

The greater challenge, though, is spiritual: 30 minutes of silence with the Lord every day. The men are asked to not fill the silence with a podcast, prayer list, or even a Rosary. Just quiet. “Especially at the beginning you want to fill it with something,” Sam says. “But the point is to just be quiet.”

And the guys are discovering that sometimes the things we give up reveal the things that have a hold on us.

One of Sam’s biggest revelations came from giving up news and social media. With his military background, he had developed a habit of constantly checking what was happening politically and militarily around the world. He didn’t realize how attached he had become to staying informed—until he stopped.

“I was hoping to get good habits,” he says, “but I realized I had some not so good attachments.”

Instead, he’s learning to pay closer attention to the people and responsibilities right in front of him—his family, his faith, and the people God has actually placed in his path.

Similarly, Antonio Herrera says he felt he needed a closer relationship with God. “I am going through a lot of changes in my life and with everything that is going on in my life, I felt like my faith was crumbling in some way. Also social media and the news were pulling me in that direction and this St. Michael Lent is perfect to renew my relationship with Jesus and Virgin Mary. I still have a long road ahead of me, but the brotherhood we are building at SJE is unique.”

There is also a “keep watch” component. On Fridays, the guys wake at 2 a.m. for an hour of prayer. Four or five regularly head to the Perpetual Adoration Chapel to keep watch together. Because apparently, if you’re going to lose sleep, you might as well do it with Jesus!

That, in many ways, is the real beauty of St. Michael’s Lent: doing something difficult together makes it a whole lot more joyful. “It’s really neat getting to know these guys really, really well through this whole thing,” Sam says.

The men will celebrate the end of St. Michael’s Lent together with a workout and some good old-fashioned camaraderie—and then, perhaps, they’ll take another step, into Exodus 90.

For some, St. Michael’s Lent has become a “soft introduction” to Exodus 90, the rigorous 90-day spiritual journey for men during Lent that combines prayer, ascetic practices, fraternity and intentional habits to help men become freer to live their faith and lead their families.

Sam has never done Exodus 90—but now he’s thinking about it.

And maybe that’s exactly where St. Michael’s Lent is leading these guys: a little less comfort, a little more discipline, a lot more brotherhood—and a deeper desire to become the men God is calling them to be.

Would you take the challenge? St. Michael’s Lent ends September 29. But for these men, the journey may just be getting started.