Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving
When you’re thinking of what to do this Lent, and it’s not too late to think about adding Lenten resolution, think of these three pillars.
Prayer – There are countless ways to better your prayer life during Lent here are a few suggestions.
- Begin praying the Morning or Evening Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours
- Pray for — by name — people you don’t like and for people that don’t like you.
- Pray for those, e.g., children, parents, spouse, siblings, who have left the church.
- Pray the news — for the people whose stories of hardship are reported daily and weekly.
- Observe five minutes of silence every day.
- Develop a prayer list.
- Begin (or begin again) the daily Rosary.
- Choose one extra devotion per week during Lent: Stations of the Cross, Eucharistic adoration or a weekday Mass.
- Make a commitment to reading the Sunday readings before you go to Mass.
- If you don’t have a cross in your apartment or house, buy a simple one and put it in your bedroom.
Fasting – I’d like to start with a quote by Melissa Nussbaum
Ask most Catholics about Lent and they will talk about fasting, so let’s begin there. And, more precisely, let’s begin with fasting as a canonically sanctioned “diet,” or as a good opportunity to stop some bad habits. “I’m going to give up cigarettes for Lent,” is a common refrain. Very utilitarian, and very American, but not very Catholic. For we never fast from the dangerous, the harmful or the hurtful. If I tell you that I’m going to give up slapping the baby for Lent, you would be right to admonish me that I ought to stop hitting the baby. Period. Regardless of the liturgical season. I don’t fast from slapping the baby during Lent only to pick it up again when Easter arrives!
We are to fast from foods and practices that are good for us so that we identify with Christ’s suffering. We abstain on Friday’s because that is the day Christ died.
Almsgiving – Is fairly easy to understand. Give money to charities and to those in need. It can also mean giving of your time and talents. I know of accountants who give up their time to complete tax returns for the poor. So think not just of the treasure you can give but also of your talents that you can give.
I hope everyone has a blessed Lent.
February 18, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I wonder whether it’s necessarily better to fast from things that are good for us, as opposed to things that are just not bad for us. If I start fasting from computer time one day a week, for instance, it opens a space in my life that makes room for God. But being on the computer is not actually good for me. It’s pretty much a morally neutral item that can be compressed into a smaller time frame than I usually allow for it. And I’m not actually sure we should fast from things that are good for us to the extent that they’re important to our health–vegetables, exercise, sleep, communication with friends, all would be kind of iffy choices for a fast. Maybe it makes more sense to say it’s goods in our lives that we’re fasting from.
February 18, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I think opening a space for God is a very important part of someone’s life. We can all be too busy to go to daily mass, or even daily prayer.
But I’m not sure I agree with you with respect to Lenten fasting. Monks fast from sleep by virtue of waking in the middle of the night to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. There’s an order of nuns that only allows communication with friends and family for one hour each year. You don’t see very many jogging Trappist monks, so exercise can be given up. I think you can even make a case for vegetables. If vegetables are treated as the main course in your diet, giving up meat is not a big deal. So why not give up vegetables. And before someone says that will kill you, I didn’t eat vegetables for two years and I didn’t get sick, not that I recommend that diet, but you know what I mean (that may be the most grammatically incorrect sentence of the year).
I don’t think we’re called to give up vegetables, exercise, sleep, or talking to friends all the time. But I think they could be really powerful expressions of living a penitential season.
February 18, 2008 at 10:06 pm
But to clarify I don’t think you should give something up that would risk death or serious illness.
February 23, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Thanks. Short, Sweet and to the Point!
Peace,
Tristan