OK, OK, I admit it: I like Lent. There’s something about self-deprivation and deferred gratification that brings out the best in me. And
even though I sometimes slide reluctantly into the traditional Lenten
practices of prayer, fasting and alms-giving, I know they result in deepened
devotion and discipline and, ultimately, joy.
Year after year, it’s happened for me and confirmed my belief that everyone might benefit from observing Lent in a deeper fashion.
Plus, I actually like tuna-noodle casserole. I really do. It’s a Catholic comfort food, I’m certain. I also like the ashes as a sort of literal “in your face” sign of our Catholicism. I like our rich rituals of the season, our purple liturgical environment, the Gospel readings culminating with Passion Sunday, the arid holy water founts and all the strong reminders of who we are and where we have been as a faith community. I’m always especially horrified and humbled to know that many of us would have stood among the crowd of people shrieking “Crucify Him!”
I also like Lent for the same reason I like New Year’s Day — both seem to me appropriate times to begin again, to redouble my efforts, improve myself and thereby my life and my own world and, with grace, that of my neighbor.
Still, more and more, I approach Lent with seemingly less and less creativity. “What will I give up this Lent?” I ask myself. “What should I do this year?”
I don’t feel I have to don a hair shirt, necessarily. But I want to push the envelope, so to speak, and not lose sight of the nature of Lent, knowing that I’ll get out of it precisely what I put into it.
So I decided to do what I often do: I made a list. To promote a more prayerful and penitential Lent, I’m offering the following suggestions compiled as ways to keep a holy Lent. By no means is this list all inclusive. Heavens! I just think of these as 40 deeds for 40 days:
Memorize a prayer + Bear a wrong patiently + Look up your Baptismal date if you don’t know it, and note it for future celebration + Contribute money to a charitable cause + Volunteer at a shelter, soup kitchen, hospital or other social service ministry that could use a hand + Clean a closet; donate the goods + Visit patients in a hospice or hospital + Pray for missionaries + Participate in Operation Rice Bowl + Counsel the doubtful + Receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation + Take your back issues of magazines to a nursing home + Pray the Way of the Cross. And be present while your pray. + Help a young person + Meditate on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary + Enroll in a faith formation class, and show up! + Pray for priests, seminarians, Religious women and men + Make a contemplative retreat + Study the life of your patron saint + Forgive someone who has trespassed against you + Resist temptation + Resist again + Respect life + Pray for the dead + Visit a prison + Hold your tongue + Fast an extra day + Practice politeness + Decry war and injustice + Join the parish choir + Or sing at liturgy + Remember an old friend + Forget a grudge + Appreciate creation + Read a Catholic writer + Read another Catholic writer + Welcome the stranger + Pray for the well-being of families + Reflect on Scriptures + Listen to your conscience. Really listen.
Mind you, I share this list of possibilities only to offer options, not to overwhelm you.
I was interviewing a priest working in the inner-city amidst the indignities of poverty and the oppression of crime. He ticked off the hardships with which he wrestles. Eventually I threw up my hands and asked him how he continues when the odds stacked against him loom so large and the problems seem so systemic.
The priest said, “Just because we can’t do everything doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do something.”
So that’s what I’m doing this Lent: I have a lot of work to do, but I’m trying to do something, mindful that I’m human and highly fallible, aware that I won’t find perfection in this Lent or this life. But after 40 days and 40 nights of practicing my resolve, after the Triduum unfolds, on Easter morning I’ll smile when I sing: ALLELUIA!
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