Mark your calendars! Wednesday March 5th will be Ash Wednesday – the beginning of Lent. This is not an event but a journey. Really it could be called Re-lent! Forty Days to step back and take an honest account of ourselves with the aid of prayer, fasting, and abstinence.
We are invited not to endurance but to conversion. “I have called you by name.” We can do almost anything for six weeks but for a lifetime? Yes, that is what conversion is all about. 40 days or 40 daze? Your choice: prayer, fasting/abstinence or almsgiving.
- Prayer you may say prayers, pray, or both. Some quiet time each day with the Lord. A blessed “time-out.”
- Fasting, which is not meant to be a crash diet – “right thing for the wrong season.” There is always fasting from gossip, T.V., computers, iPod, etc. Here is a novel idea—the time could be used for some spiritual reading.
- Almsgiving – not just financial but a giving of the person.
Many cannot be out and about but we know how to use a phone or send a card (yes it costs for postage but worth every penny) – check out clothes and donate good outfits to places that assist women who are applying for jobs (this too can be an ongoing event).
Lent should not be a routine. Here is a fun suggestion for oneself or a family–make a stack of cards with a suggestion for the day (this can be made ready before Ash Wednesday). Each night before the supper, draw from the stack and put the suggestion into practice the following day. This can be a family event and helps to keep us re-Lenting in heart and mind. Don’t let Lent sneak up on you because just around the corner from re-Lenting is Easter.
Halleluia Bless the Lord!
Barbara Vaughan, CSJ