Lenten Refresher

The 3 pillars of Lent & my thoughts on current/recent reads (The Whole-Brain Child and a collection of Martin Luther's works)

There are three pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. This isn’t a time to simply give up chocolate, but a time to become more prayerful, observe the required days of fasting/abstinence, deny ourselves a small pleasure (or a couple, depending on where you are in your spiritual life), and giving of ourselves in some way.

Prayer

Prayer is a "vital and personal relationship with the living and true God".¹ Even outside of Lent, our prayer life should be a top priority. If you are reading this, feeling despair over the current state of your prayer life, let me encourage you to take a step back. Make a simple, reasonable goal. If you are not accustomed to daily prayer, do not expect yourself to jump into daily Holy Hours or something similar. Start small, whether that be 5 minutes every morning for the next week, followed by 10 minutes every morning the next week, etc…building up to a daily routine/habit. Another option could be to aim for 15 minutes of prayer every other day. The hardest part is starting. Do not overthink it….just do!

My favorite way to pray is through a process called Lectio Divina, which I wrote about in this post. I recommend giving it a try, using the daily readings.

Here are some other ideas for your Lenten prayer plans. Feel free to add more ideas in the comments, as this list is not exhaustive.

• Daily Rosary

• Daily Mass

• Spiritual Book (such as Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila or Story of a Soul by St. Therese of Lisieux)

• Consecration (such as 33 Days to Merciful Love, 33 Days to Morning Glory, or Consecration to St. Joseph)

• Schedule silence into your day (Adoration is one way this could be accomplished, but otherwise, just find a time to not do anything and just listen)

• Weekly Confession with a thorough Examination of Conscience

• Read the Bible daily

Fasting

“Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence for Catholics. In addition, Fridays during Lent are obligatory days of abstinence. For members of the Latin Catholic Church, the norms on fasting are obligatory from age 18 until age 59. When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal. The norms concerning abstinence from meat are binding upon members of the Latin Catholic Church from age 14 onwards.”² (With that said, some individuals are not bound by this, such as pregnant or breastfeeding women.)³ In addition, “[f]or all other weekdays of Lent, we strongly recommend participation in daily Mass and a self-imposed observance of fasting.”⁴

We should spend some time prayerfully discerning what God is asking us to do without during Lent. By denying ourselves something we are attached to, we are making room for God in our lives.

Here are some ideas, but again, please feel free to share more in the comments.

• Give up secular media (limit yourself to only Christian music, movies, TV shows, books, and podcasts)

• Get rid of the TVs in your home (box them up and store them in the garage or basement)

• Give up meat for the entirety of Lent

• Cold Showers

• Give up your favorite drink (coffee, tea, beer, etc.)

• Social media

• Swap your smart phone for a dumb phone

Almsgiving

“During Lent, we are asked to focus more intently on ‘almsgiving,’ which means donating money or goods to the poor and performing other acts of charity.”⁵

If giving more money during Lent is not an option for you, there are other ways you can give: time or talent.

Here are some ideas:

• Give money to your Parish or an organization that is doing good work for the Kingdom

• Volunteer (help clean at your Parish, serve food at a soup kitchen, help sort baby clothes at a pregnancy resource center, etc.)

• Offer a free service (what are you good at? Do that for someone for free: change the oil in someone’s car, babysit, create a piece of art for someone, mow someone's grass, make baby blankets for a Pregnancy center, cook a meal, etc.)

Concluding Thoughts

I hope this post got you thinking about Lent, if you haven’t already. See this as an opportunity to grow closer to Christ, not a dreaded thing you have to do. The Church wants us to be holy.

Thoughts on Things I'm Reading

For my shorter posts, I like to tack this section on. I'm working myself through a stack of library books that I had placed holds on without realizing that they could all come in at once….I'm learning. Ha!

• The Whole-Brain Child - A fantastic read! I enjoy reading about child brain development, and this book did not disappoint. Our oldest is 3, and I think I learned a lot more about myself than I did about him. However, there is so much I will be able to take into my parenting as he grows. The last chapter of the book was very Theology of the Body-esque, which was cool. All that to say: I'll be purchasing this one to reference in the future.

• I've been working my way through a volume of Martin Luther's works and it's been…interesting. Quick thoughts: if you are limited in reading time, stick to St. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle or something similar. I've not felt very spiritually edified by what Luther has presented so far. Take that with a grain of salt, though, since my exposure to Luther is limited. To balance out the negative, he has had some good nuggets that I've marked with sticky notes. If you can overlook the sporadic insults towards the Pope/Papists (I'm not saying that his accusations aren't true, but they have been distracting), it's an okay read.

Thanks for being here! Please pray for me. I will be praying for you.

1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2558

2. Fast & Abstinence | USCCB

3. “Those that are excused from fast and abstinence outside the age limits include the physically or mentally ill including individuals suffering from chronic illnesses such as diabetes.  Also excluded are pregnant or nursing women.  In all cases, common sense should prevail, and ill persons should not further jeopardize their health by fasting.” (What is Lent? | USCCB)

4. Pastoral Statement on Penance and Abstinence, 14

5. Almsgiving | USCCB