Lent begins this week on Ash Wednesday and each one of us is called by the Lord Jesus to a deeper conversion as we prepare to celebrate the Passover of the Lord at Easter. During the coming 40 Days, let us strive to live in fidelity to the promises of our Baptism which we will renew at the Easter Vigil and at all the Masses on Easter Sunday of the Lord’s Resurrection. Lent is a time to learn to love our souls more than our bodies. Thus, every Christian should make a special effort to practice mortification and strive for holiness during these forty days. We all can think of something we will give up this Lent as a sacrifice for our Lord. But there are other things that you can do as well to make Lent, and then Easter, more fruitful.
Here are some of the practical ways that could be done this Lent:
+ Walk the Way of the Cross at least once a week on Saturdays @ 4:30pm (SHJ), or Sundays @ 8:30am (SHM) & 10:30am (SHJ) respectively. Borrow a guide to the stations at the back of the church
+ Go to Confession. There is no better preparation for Easter than making a good Confession. Or consider making a General Confession during Lent – not out of scruples over past confessions, but as a means of spiritual growth. You will feel like a new person, ready to win the world for the Lord.
+ Try and attend Mass on the weekdays of Lent, either arriving early or staying late to pray for your special intention before the Blessed Sacrament, who will listen as you speak to Him heart to heart.
+ Make a special effort to ask your spouse about how you can better help him/her, and do the same with your children.
+ Push back from every meal before you’ve had enough. Through your body’s hunger for food be mindful of your soul’s hunger for the Lord, a hunger that is satisfied only when we give ourselves without reservation in the obedience of faith to the Gospel. And on Ash Wednesday and each Friday of Lent abstain from meat and fast as your health and age allow.
+ Pray the Rosary daily on your way to or from work, offering particularly the Sorrowful Mysteries for the end of the wars in Ukraine or the capital crime of abortion and euthanasia in our country.
+ Sacrifice one meal a day for freedom of conscience and religious liberty in our country, and also for Christians suffering persecution in Nigeria and the Middle East. Commit to not eating meat on Fridays during Lent!
+ Give up television and/or all movies (Netflix, Prime, YouTube, etc.) for Lent. Or snacking between meals. Or enable the grayscale feature on your smartphone.
+ Reconcile with relatives or estranged or former friends, or at least make the attempt.
+ Talk to one or two friends about becoming Catholic and to one or two lukewarm or lapsed Catholics about going to Confession or returning to the Church. Ask them to join you at Mass one Sunday of Lent. A gentle invitation is often the only thing needed to bring a soul back to the Lord Jesus. Back up your initiative with prayer.
+ Pray the Liturgy of the Hours in whole or in part by using the app called iBreviary or the monthly publication called Magnificat.
But whatever you do, do it for the Lord and not for some lesser, natural motives which would diminish or even nullify their merit.