Preparing for Lent

Lent is around the corner. Sometimes I feel that the season of Lent arrives before I know it. With this in mind I thought I would provide a few books that can really help to prepare for our Risen Lord.


1. Get the Magnificat Lenten guide. Small enough to fit in your purse or back pocket, this guide provides Scripture and a meditation for each day in Lent. Find yours here.

2. Crossing te Desert- Lent and Conversion by James Keating. I reviewed this book last year here.

'Crossing the Desert' is a easy to read guide that allows the reader an opportunity to really get to the heart of the Lenten season. It is not specific to certain days during Lent so you could pick it up at any point and start to read it. I think I got mine from Amazon.

3. Choose a saint who's life you would like to learn more about. Make a committment to study and reflect on the life of a saint special in your life. Some great choices:

 
              The Diary of St. Faustina
              The Interior Castle- St. Thersa of Avila
              St Augustine- Confessions
              A Simple Path- Mother Teresa
              No Greater Love- Mother Teresa

Dependency on God

As Lent continues on I am struck by how easily I can become complacent in my faith. There are times when I am so busy trying to tame this whirlwind called my life that I miss the point.... Truly breathing in Christ, letting Him fill my soul and letting go of the world.

I read a quote that is simple in its message yet speaks volumes to my heart at the same time.

It reads:

'Lent is a time given to us during the Liturgical year by the Church to help us learn a greater dependency on God'.

This is where I ask myself where my dependency on God really lies.....

Do I turn to him in times of sorrow? Probably

Do I turn to him in times of joy? Sometimes

Do I turn to him when I am so frustrated with my two year old I could cry? Rarely

I desire that greater dependency on God. Sometimes it's just easier to turn to whatever can be the quickest source of instant gratification... perhaps snacking or sitting in front on the computer. But truly my heart desires to know Him more and for that I must understand what our relationship is based on:

He is the creator and we are his created.

How beautiful is this? We were formed to be dependent on Our Father in Heaven but because of original sin it becomes more difficult to see that relationship. Pride entered the world and told its lies.... Pride said that we could make better decisions then our Father, that we could become more wise than He. I know that my insistence on doing things my way comes directly from the first sin. I also know that Christ came as the new Adam to give us new life and through Him I can learn dependency. I know that Mary came as the new Eve to become the Christ-bearer and give us a chance to learn what dependency really means.

We are completely, 100% dependent on our loving Father who knew us before we were formed in the womb. It is through prayer that we can come to begin to understand what this truly means in our heart.

We pray that this Lent continues to be a time of renewal and that we will truly turn to him in all matters of our life. Lord let us become truly dependent and connect our free will with yours. We know that your way provides the best way possible for us to reach sanctity and we pray that we may unite our heart with yours.

Amen!

Lenten Craft Ideas

Attention moms:

I found a great Lent idea here at Kids by the Half Dozen!

It's a Lenten chain! Thanks for the great idea!

And here are some great themed coloring pages for St. Patrick's day and Lent. They can be found at Christian Coloring.

Here comes the sun

The sun came out today. It is still cold, don't get me wrong, but there is a shining, bright sun.... It is reminding me of something... HOPE.

It has been a long time since I have had to experience a true winter. In Florida (yep, Florida) there is no winter. There is a cold day here or a cold day there but usually winter in Florida is glorious. (Seriously glorious!)

But up here in the North I have experienced winter (albeit a light winter according to most of the locals) and this surprisingly sunny day has began to rejuvenate my soul! Aside from the promised Vitamin D, the sun has provided me with hope that winter is coming to an end. I am amazed by how the seasons tie into the liturgical year up North. In college my Northern girlfriends would make fun of me as I knew none of the 'rules'. White shoes after Easter, bright, pastel clothing for Easter day, etc. I mean in Florida anything goes all the time!

Back to my sunshine.... It is as if God gives me this day to say -listen, Lent is rough and barren. This is why it is called desert time. But it will not be cold forever. My son will rise again and you will rejoice. The winter months will end and you will participate in the eternal springtime.

It is beautiful to think that this time of grey and cold will turn to a time when our flowers will grow, our food will be planted and our hearts will be created anew. I pray that Lent continues to be a time of sacrifice and reflection. I pray that I can appreciate the desert (My winter) so that when Christ is resurrected I may truly REJOICE!

Pope Benedict XVI

As Lent moves forward I find myself looking at my Lenten promises and wondering when I became so weak?? Fortunately, Pope Benedict has provided his flock with a Lenten message so to keep me on the right path.....

Now more than ever I believe prayer and fasting will be the cornerstone for change in the White house. We can use these tools to facilitate change not only in our own homes but for those in the homes of our entire country.

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

At the beginning of Lent, which constitutes an itinerary of more intense spiritual training, the Liturgy sets before us again three penitential practices that are very dear to the biblical and Christian tradition – prayer, almsgiving, fasting – to prepare us to better celebrate Easter and thus experience God’s power that, as we shall hear in the Paschal Vigil, “dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy, casts out hatred, brings us peace and humbles earthly pride” (Paschal Præconium aka the Exultet). For this year’s Lenten Message, I wish to focus my reflections especially on the value and meaning of fasting. Indeed, Lent recalls the forty days of our Lord’s fasting in the desert, which He undertook before entering into His public ministry. We read in the Gospel: “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry” (Mt 4,1-2). Like Moses, who fasted before receiving the tablets of the Law (cf. Ex 34,28) and Elijah’s fast before meeting the Lord on Mount Horeb (cf. 1 Kings 19,8), Jesus, too, through prayer and fasting, prepared Himself for the mission that lay before Him, marked at the start by a serious battle with the tempter.

We might wonder what value and meaning there is for us Christians in depriving ourselves of something that in itself is good and useful for our bodily sustenance. The Sacred Scriptures and the entire Christian tradition teach that fasting is a great help to avoid sin and all that leads to it. For this reason, the history of salvation is replete with occasions that invite fasting. In the very first pages of Sacred Scripture, the Lord commands man to abstain from partaking of the prohibited fruit: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Gn 2, 16-17). Commenting on the divine injunction, Saint Basil observes that “fasting was ordained in Paradise,” and “the first commandment in this sense was delivered to Adam.” He thus concludes: “ ‘You shall not eat’ is a law of fasting and abstinence” (cf. Sermo de jejunio: PG 31, 163, 98). Since all of us are weighed down by sin and its consequences, fasting is proposed to us as an instrument to restore friendship with God. Such was the case with Ezra, who, in preparation for the journey from exile back to the Promised Land, calls upon the assembled people to fast so that “we might humble ourselves before our God” (8,21). The Almighty heard their prayer and assured them of His favor and protection. In the same way, the people of Nineveh, responding to Jonah’s call to repentance, proclaimed a fast, as a sign of their sincerity, saying: “Who knows, God may yet repent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we perish not?” (3,9). In this instance, too, God saw their works and spared them.

In the New Testament, Jesus brings to light the profound motive for fasting, condemning the attitude of the Pharisees, who scrupulously observed the prescriptions of the law, but whose hearts were far from God. True fasting, as the divine Master repeats elsewhere, is rather to do the will of the Heavenly Father, who “sees in secret, and will reward you” (Mt 6,18). He Himself sets the example, answering Satan, at the end of the forty days spent in the desert that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4,4). The true fast is thus directed to eating the “true food,” which is to do the Father’s will (cf. Jn 4,34). If, therefore, Adam disobeyed the Lord’s command “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,” the believer, through fasting, intends to submit himself humbly to God, trusting in His goodness and mercy.

The practice of fasting is very present in the first Christian community (cf. Acts 13,3; 14,22; 27,21; 2 Cor 6,5). The Church Fathers, too, speak of the force of fasting to bridle sin, especially the lusts of the “old Adam,” and open in the heart of the believer a path to God. Moreover, fasting is a practice that is encountered frequently and recommended by the saints of every age. Saint Peter Chrysologus writes: “Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others, you open God’s ear to yourself” (Sermo 43: PL 52, 320. 322).

In our own day, fasting seems to have lost something of its spiritual meaning, and has taken on, in a culture characterized by the search for material well-being, a therapeutic value for the care of one’s body. Fasting certainly bring benefits to physical well-being, but for believers, it is, in the first place, a “therapy” to heal all that prevents them from conformity to the will of God. In the Apostolic Constitution Pænitemini of 1966, the Servant of God Paul VI saw the need to present fasting within the call of every Christian to “no longer live for himself, but for Him who loves him and gave himself for him … he will also have to live for his brethren“ (cf. Ch. I). Lent could be a propitious time to present again the norms contained in the Apostolic Constitution, so that the authentic and perennial significance of this long held practice may be rediscovered, and thus assist us to mortify our egoism and open our heart to love of God and neighbor, the first and greatest Commandment of the new Law and compendium of the entire Gospel (cf. Mt 22, 34-40).

The faithful practice of fasting contributes, moreover, to conferring unity to the whole person, body and soul, helping to avoid sin and grow in intimacy with the Lord. Saint Augustine, who knew all too well his own negative impulses, defining them as “twisted and tangled knottiness” (Confessions, II, 10.18), writes: “I will certainly impose privation, but it is so that he will forgive me, to be pleasing in his eyes, that I may enjoy his delightfulness” (Sermo 400, 3, 3: PL 40, 708). Denying material food, which nourishes our body, nurtures an interior disposition to listen to Christ and be fed by His saving word. Through fasting and praying, we allow Him to come and satisfy the deepest hunger that we experience in the depths of our being: the hunger and thirst for God.

At the same time, fasting is an aid to open our eyes to the situation in which so many of our brothers and sisters live. In his First Letter, Saint John admonishes: “If anyone has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, yet shuts up his bowels of compassion from him – how does the love of God abide in him?” (3,17). Voluntary fasting enables us to grow in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, who bends low and goes to the help of his suffering brother (cf. Encyclical Deus caritas est, 15). By freely embracing an act of self-denial for the sake of another, we make a statement that our brother or sister in need is not a stranger. It is precisely to keep alive this welcoming and attentive attitude towards our brothers and sisters that I encourage the parishes and every other community to intensify in Lent the custom of private and communal fasts, joined to the reading of the Word of God, prayer and almsgiving. From the beginning, this has been the hallmark of the Christian community, in which special collections were taken up (cf. 2 Cor 8-9; Rm 15, 25-27), the faithful being invited to give to the poor what had been set aside from their fast (Didascalia Ap., V, 20,18). This practice needs to be rediscovered and encouraged again in our day, especially during the liturgical season of Lent.

From what I have said thus far, it seems abundantly clear that fasting represents an important ascetical practice, a spiritual arm to do battle against every possible disordered attachment to ourselves. Freely chosen detachment from the pleasure of food and other material goods helps the disciple of Christ to control the appetites of nature, weakened by original sin, whose negative effects impact the entire human person. Quite opportunely, an ancient hymn of the Lenten liturgy exhorts: “Utamur ergo parcius, / verbis cibis et potibus, / somno, iocis et arctius / perstemus in custodia – Let us use sparingly words, food and drink, sleep and amusements. May we be more alert in the custody of our senses.”

Dear brothers and sisters, it is good to see how the ultimate goal of fasting is to help each one of us, as the Servant of God Pope John Paul II wrote, to make the complete gift of self to God (cf. Encyclical Veritatis splendor, 21). May every family and Christian community use well this time of Lent, therefore, in order to cast aside all that distracts the spirit and grow in whatever nourishes the soul, moving it to love of God and neighbor. I am thinking especially of a greater commitment to prayer, lectio divina, recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and active participation in the Eucharist, especially the Holy Sunday Mass. With this interior disposition, let us enter the penitential spirit of Lent. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Causa nostrae laetitiae, accompany and support us in the effort to free our heart from slavery to sin, making it evermore a “living tabernacle of God.” With these wishes, while assuring every believer and ecclesial community of my prayer for a fruitful Lenten journey, I cordially impart to all of you my Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican, 11 December 2008.

(emphasis added by blogger) :-)

For a copy of this article click here.

Crossing the Desert

'Crossing the Desert- Lent and Conversion'- by James Keating






"Lent is not simply a season for avoidance; it is a season of new life, a springtime of the soul" p. 6

"The word 'Lent' originated from Middle English and means 'springtime'. In the turning from sin and the consequent embracing of moral goodness, one knows a moral 'springtime'." p. 6

There are six chapters:

The Desert of Consumerism
The Desert of Ordinary Life
Waiting in the Desert
The Desert of Sin
Leaving the Desert
The Oasis of Lent


Through out the book there are opportunities to 'meditate' with questions like this one:

Recall your most promising Lent.
Why did it or did it not reach fulfillment?

'Crossing the Desert' is a easy to read guide that allows the reader an opportunity to really get to the heart of the Lenten season. It is not specific to certain days during Lent so you could pick it up at any point and start to read it.

We pray your Lent is a time for spiritual renewal!