Lent is not completed on our own initiative

We know by experience that we have not sufficient strength in ourselves to bring to a successful completion our chief Lenten duty, which is to die fully to sin in order to live fully in the risen Christ. But Christ himself, before leaving his own, prayed to his Father to preserve them from evil and from the evil one, from the seductions of the world and the attacks of Satan. He taught them to ask, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Obviously he did not intend that his disciples be spared every kind of temptation and danger, for this would be impossible in this life; besides, God himself permits it to test our virtue, but he wanted to assure them sufficient strength to resist. The evil from which he desired to free them was sin, the only real disaster, because it separates us from God.

Divine Intimacy

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD