Lent begins tomorrow. 40 days and nights of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. A time to look at ourselves, our lives, and our habits and figure out whether we're honoring God or honoring ourselves in the things that make up our lives.
Every year around this time we all start scratching our heads and trying to figure out what we're going to give up. Sweets? Coffee? Facebook? Candy? Beer? TV? What's it going to be?
I have read some great blogs that sparked my thoughts on what I could do. This one gave 66 ideas, of varying degrees of difficulty, that we could offer up as our Lenten penance. It also got me thinking of the selfishness of some of our penances. Take sweets or desserts: Are you giving it up because you really want to offer up the sacrifice of something you enjoy? Or would you really like to lose a few pounds and by giving up something you enjoy (like sweets) you're able to lose that weight? Why not give up dessert and focus on weight loss AFTER lent?
Those very thoughts got me thinking and talking with the family about what we were going to do this year. In years past we've mainly focused on the self deprivation and spiritual growth as opposed to focusing on all three areas. This year we made a list as a family for each family member's Lenten focus.
Sacrifice. Spiritual. Service.
This is some of what we've come up with:
C2: Sacrifice: No cereal snack during mass time. Spiritual: Trying to sit quiet in mass. Service: Waving to people we see in public. (She's 18 months old so it's basic.)
T: Sacrifice: No candy. Spiritual: Saying a St. Michael Prayer everyday. Service: Emptying the trash cans daily from the bathrooms.
C1: Sacrifice: No candy. Spiritual:Waking up an extra 5 minutes early to offer up his day to God. Service: Taking the trashcan down to the street and back up and helping put away the groceries every time we go to the store
C1: Sacrifice: No candy. Spiritual:Waking up an extra 5 minutes early to offer up his day to God. Service: Taking the trashcan down to the street and back up and helping put away the groceries every time we go to the store
I took some ideas from the aforementioned blog and am going to give up taking the closest parking spot. I'm also implementing a "Only one light on in the house at a time" with bathrooms being the exception. As for service, I'm going to be doing 40 Bags for 40 Days and cleaning out, organizing, donating and purging the equivalent of 40 Bags of "stuff" to better bless our house and others. Spiritually I'm going back to reading the Daily Readings every day, before leaving the house in the morning. Additionally I'm doing a Marian Consecration and some other spiritual reading and committing to at least 10 additional minutes of spiritual reading.
As I write this, I'm watching Mother Angelica's Classics on EWTN and it's a re-run of a talk she gave in March of 2000 talking about Lent and Ash Wednesday and she's brought to mind two things I've never thought of before.
1. Lent is a time to say, "There's a lot of me that hasn't changed a bit." And to start working on changing what you should have changed.
2. Every day we have 1,000 different things we can offer up as our lenten penance.
Her examples of number two ranged from things like not getting aggravated with another driver on the road. Giving a server, taxi driver, service worker an extra high tip. Giving up your temper. Praying for the person who made you mad. Eating the less than delicious meal you were cooked without complaining. Smiling at strangers. And every time you do it, you can say "This is my lenten penance."
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What is everyone else doing this Lent to grow closer to Christ?
