What is your focus during Lent this year? You may be heard my story of the priest who every First Sunday of Lent admonished us not to give up candy. His message was not to make your annual discipline something because that is the routine you do every year. So, Lent becomes a time where you habitually give up candy and nothing else. It is a mindless practice that if it is routine produces little fruit.
Make this Lent a time to draw closer to Christ by engaging in silence, good spiritual reading and fasting from those things that are distractions from prayer.
So maybe give up watching videos in your down time and reading a book instead. It does not have to be a spiritual book but a book that you have always wanted to read but never found the time. I just finished The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, for example.
Maybe add spiritual reading to your prayer time and if you do not have any prayer time then definitely consider working on setting aside time in your daily schedule. It may be fifteen minutes or even the hour I practice daily. Build in this period but the length of it can be your choice. As one Jesuit told me: Pray as you can, not as you can’t.
I am reminded of the rare times I jogged in the past, I never liked to jog with others because their pace may be different than mine. Prayer is the same, your prayer time and activity may be different than another’s so make it your prayer time and pray as you can, not as others practice.
During this time do some adventurous praying, occasionally: that is speaking and listening to God in a different environment than you do daily. So, consider going to a monastery chapel or even outdoors. Find a place to pray in the woods nearby or even a long distance away. One place I pray occasionally is Mount Tom which is in Holyoke, Massachusetts. I live in Boston and Mount Tom is north of the western major city in Massachusetts, so it is a distance. However, it is a great place to pray in nature.
If you live where there is a sparse population such as rural areas or even the desert areas such as in the Midwest and Southwest respectively, consider a form of prayer where you are calling out to God, speaking to him loudly about what bothers you the most and ask him to help you in your needs.
Lent is clearly a time not to do something routine but to seek to grow closer to Christ through your prayer, fostering silent activities, engaging in good spiritual reading and seek to grow closer to God through your prayer in the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ.
Obviously, it is also time for to draw close to the sacraments such as Reconcilation. If you have not been to confession since the Carter Administration, this Lent is a good time to go. If you confess regularly then that is wonderful too.
So, make a powerful Lent this year and go beyond the routine of just giving up candy.
Looking for a parish to attend during Lent? If you are in Eastern Massachusetts, you are welcome to come to St. Anthony Parish in Allston, Massachusetts at 10:00 a.m. This is our chanted Mass.
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