In a rare coincidence this year, the Christian liturgical season of Lent began on February 18, Ash Wednesday, one day after the beginning of Ramadan, the Muslim ritual season of fasting and prayer.

To mark this occasion, Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue issued “Message for the Month of Ramadan,” assured Muslims that Catholics stand in “solidarity” with them during these holy seasons.

A war breaks out

But countries all over the world were shaken ten days later, when Donald J. Trump, president of the United States, announced the beginning of “major combat operations against Iran.”

Instead of sharing this time of peaceful reflection with Muslims, Christians instead find themselves confronted with the outbreak of potentially unjustifiable hostilities that may mark the beginning of global World War III.

The conditions for waging a “just war” were defined in Western Christianity by St. Augustine (d. 430 CE).

Already, some Christian theologians have used these criteria point by point, to argue that the war with Iran is indeed unjust.

However, in the past, even waging a just war during Lent was considered sinful.

Medieval refinements to just war

In the medieval period, the Catholic Church introduced two additional refinements to the idea of a “just war”: the Truce of God (Terga Dei) and the Peace of God (Pax Dei).

The Peace of God stipulated that certain categories of persons and properties could not be attacked during wartime. These sound familiar even today.

For example, the clergy, pilgrims, women, and other noncombatants, had to be left in peace. Church properties and other sacred sites were also to be left undisturbed.

The Truce of God dealt with the calendar. Wars could not be conducted on specific days or certain times of the liturgical year, for example, Christmas. Listed among these forbidden seasons were Lent and Easter.

Modern warfare ends the truce

Over the centuries, advances in weapons technology and the dominance of secular interests made both irrelevant.

Wartime use of drones, missiles, and nuclear weapons may have made any kind of “Peace/Truce of God,” or any “Just War” in general, an impossibility in the modern world.

Today no noncombatants or geographical areas can be excluded from the effects of war.

How to observe Lent now

So how do we observe Lent today in a troubled time of war?

Already, Pope Leo XIV has urged combatants to make “space for dialogue,” and stressed the importance prayer for peace by all.

But even before Lent began, Pope Leo recommended a fresh interpretation of the Lenten practice of fasting: refraining from “harsh language/judgement” against others.

Perhaps fasting from sensationalistic or propagandist coverage of the war on television and the internet is one approach, and as suggested by another Flashes of Insight writer, giving up Trump for Lent.

This kind of fast is an important way to make peace in our own lives this dark Lent, as we prepare in hope for the light of the Resurrection to come.

• Joanne M. Pierce, Ph.D. is Professor Emerita Department of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA.