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Preparing Before
Lent Begins
Taking some time to get ready for Lent will ensure that we
aren't going to miss the first week or two of Lent, because we are just
getting started. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, but we want to be ready
to really take off on that day, rather than just beginning to think
about Lent on that day. Part of what makes a vacation or a special anniversary
so special is the build-up to it.
Before we get to Ash Wednesday, we should start asking ourselves
some questions and we should start with some preparations. "What
does God want to give me this year?" This question may require
that I slow down a bit and listen to my inner spirit. For example, even
if I'm very busy, I realize I'm hungry when I hear my stomach start
"growling." "What am I going to be doing on Ash Wednesday?"
Too often, Ash Wednesday is like every other day, except that I manage
to get to church and get ashes on my forehead. Is there anything else
I can do on Ash Wednesday? How will fasting and abstaining happen for
me, for my family on that special day?
It doesn't a lot of time to prepare for the beginning of Lent.
It just takes desire and focus. God can do so much with that. We can
give God more of a space to touch our hearts if we begin to establish
some simple patterns. We could wake up each morning, and for something
like a half a minute to a minute, stand by the edge of our beds, and
just ask the Lord for the grace to let this day be one in which I long
for the beginning of Lent. Perhaps we need to ask for specific helps
or graces to get ready to begin Lent. Whatever we try to say, our Lord
can understand the Spirit trying to speak through our simple words.
And all it takes is the time to find and put on our slippers. And each
night, in the days ahead, we can practice giving thanks to God before
I go to bed. This simple pattern, in the morning and evening can stir
our spirits to look forward to and prepare for Lent, as a season of
grace.
May our Lord bless us all on this journey ahead.
Mardi
Gras Prayer
Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday") and Carnival ("Farewell
to Meat") precede Ash Wednesday and Lent around the world, even where
Lent has ceased to have much religious meaning. It was natural
to develop a festival, a "last fling," before the prayerful fasting
and abstinence of Lent.
How can we give this day before Ash Wednesday
some religious meaning for us?
It may be that we are going to a Mardi Gras
party and there will be much feasting. Our country may celebrate
Carnival with gusto. Perhaps we can have a special family dinner
together, with meat.
What's important is that we let our feasting
anticipate our fasting. One way to do that is to begin to focus
on the meaning of the day, when we first get up. It can create
a sense of anticipation all day, that something very new is about to
begin tomorrow.
We can prepare for whatever
we will do, no matter how purely "social" or simply ordinary our day
will be. Knowing why we go to a party, or enjoying the planning
or preparation for a special meal, will add much meaning to this day.
Our Prayer
In these or similar words, we can pray in
the spirit of this day.
Blessed are you, Lord
God of all creation,
for it is from your goodness that we have this day
to celebrate on the threshold of the Season of Lent.
Tomorrow we will fast and
abstain from meat.
Today we feast.
We thank you for the abundance of gifts you shower upon us.
We thank you especially for one another.
As we give you thanks,
we are mindful of those who have so much less than we do.
As we share these wonderful gifts together,
we commit ourselves to greater generosity toward those
who need our support.
Prepare us for tomorrow.
Tasting the fullness of what we have today,
let us experience some hunger tomorrow.
May our fasting make us more alert
and may it heighten our consciousness
so that we might be ready to hear your Word
and respond to your call.
As our feasting fills us with
gratitude
so may our fasting and abstinence hollow out in us
a place for deeper desires
and an attentiveness to hear the cry of the poor.
May our self-denial turn our hearts to you
and give us a new freedom for
generous service to others.
We ask you these graces
with our hearts full of delight
and stirring with readiness for the journey ahead.
We ask them with confidence
in the name of Jesus the Lord.
What
about "giving up something" for Lent?
When many of us were children, we might remember our giving
up candy for Lent. And, it seemed like a real sacrifice. As we grew
up, it was often more difficult to decide what special thing to do,
to make Lent a special season - to get our attention and to prepare
ourselves for deeper sacrifices.
What would help me grow in freedom? That's the question to
ask. For some of us, it could be, committing ourselves to give up judging
others, every single day of Lent. For others, it could be giving up
a bad habit we've developed. For still others, it is obvious what seems
to be the important choice for me during Lent.
For many of us, the choice may not be to give something up,
but to add something to our daily lives during Lent. We may commit ourselves
to extra prayer time. We may decide to do some service to the poor,
once a week during Lent. We may choose to increase our almsgiving to
the poor - perhaps related to something we choose not to do, e.g., some
might choose not to go out to eat one night a week, and to give that
total amount to the poor.
Whether it is fasting, abstaining or other acts of penance,
the whole desire we should have is to use these means to help us grow
closer to our Lord and prepare ourselves "to celebrate the paschal
mystery with minds and hearts renewed." (First Preface of Lent)
Ash Wednesday
The ashes we use are the burnt palms from last year's celebration
of Passion Sunday.
We begin our Lenten journey aware of where we are going.
We want to enter into the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus for
us more fully.
That is the purpose of our journey. It is why we mark our heads with
his cross.
It is why we fast today and abstain from meat.
Our Lenten program is not an effort to save ourselves.
We have been saved by his sacrifice.
Our self-denial helps us, in the darkness that surrounds us,
to prepare ourselves to receive his light.
For this is a journey to the Easter font,
where we will renew the promises of our Baptism,
remembering that in dying with him in the waters of Baptism,
we are re-born with him to everlasting life.
This year's journey begins today.
What Needs
Changing in My Life?
We start to come to know that by asking for help. "Lord,
help me to know what needs changing." It is often said, "Be
careful about what you ask for." This is one of those requests
that God must surely want to answer.
Then, we have to listen. With a little bit of reflection, most
of us will just begin to "name" things that make up our ordinary
habits and ways of being who we are, that we aren't very proud of. Things
we do and things we never get around to doing. We can "feel"
the call to change our attitudes, our self-absorbtion, or our way of
interacting with others. Perhaps a spouse, a loved one, a friend, a
family member, a co-worker has told me something about myself that gets
in the way of communication, that makes relating to them difficult.
Maybe I don't take God very seriously. I go to Church on Sunday, and
contribute my share, but I don't really take time to deal with my relationship
with God. Perhaps I've let my mind and fantasy get cluttered with escapist
litter. I might begin to name a number of self-indulgent habits. I may
realize I rarely, if ever, hear the cry of the poor, and can't remember
when I've answered that cry. It could be that dishonesty on all kinds
of levels has become a way of life. One of the roadblocks in my relationship
with God and others may be deep wounds or resentments from the past,
things I continue to hold against others or myself.
Praying
Lent is the time to start new patterns of prayer. Perhaps
I haven't been praying at all. This is a great time to choose to begin.
It is important to begin realistically. I can start by simply pausing
when I get up and taking a slow, deep breath, and recalling what I have
to do this day, and asking for grace to do it aa a child of God. I may
want to go to bed a half an hour earlier, and get up a half an hour
earlier and give myself some time alone to read the readings for the
day, and just talk with the Lord about those readings or about the stuff
of the day. I may choose to go to Mass each day during Lent. I may choose
to get to church on Sunday, just 15 minutes earlier, so I can reflect
a bit. Lent may be a time I would want to choose to start to journal
the day to day reflections that are coming, the desires I'm naming and
asking for, the graces I am being given.
Eating
Lent is a great time to change our eating patterns. This is
not about "losing weight" or "getting in shape,"
though for most of us, paying attention to what we eat, will make a
difference in our overall health. This is about being more alert. Anyone
who has tried to diet knows that something changes in us when we try
to avoid eating. The monks in the desert, centuries ago, discovered
that fasting - simply not eating - caused a tremendous boost to their
consciousness. Not only did their bodies go on "alert," but
their whole person seemed to be in a more heightened state of attention.
The whole purpose of fasting was to aid prayer - to make it easier to
listen to God more openly, especially in times of need.
Among Catholics, only Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are named
as days of fast we all do together. (And that fast is simply to eat
only one full meal in the day, with the other two meals combined, not
equal to the one.) On the Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent, we may want
to try to fast more intentionally. Of course, always conscious of our
health and individual nutrition needs, we may want to try to eat very
little, except some juices, or perhaps a small amount of beans and rice.
We will experience how powerfully open and alert we feel and how much
easier it is to pray and to name deeper desires. Not only will I feel
less sluggish and tired, I will feel simply freer and more energized.
The other powerful advantage of fasting is that it can be a
very simple gesture that places me in greater solidarity with the poor
of the earth, who often have very little more than a little rice and
beans each day. Powerful things happen in me, when I think about those
people in the world who have so much less than I do. And, it's a great
cure for self-pity.
Practicing Generosity
Almsgiving has always been an important part of Lent. Lent
begins with the powerful Isaiah 58, on the Friday and Saturday after
Ash Wednesday. It is important to give ourselves the experience of fasting
from being un-generous. Generosity is not simply giving my excess clothes
to a place where poor people might purchase them. It's not even writing
a "generous" check at the time a collection is taken up for
a cause that benefits the poor. These are wonderful practices. Generosity
is an attitude. It is a sense that no matter how much I have, all that
I have is gift, and given to me to be shared. It means that sharing
with others in need is one of my personal priorities. That is quite
different from assessing all of my needs first, and then giving away
what is left over. A spirit of self-less giving means that one of my
needs is to share what I have with others. Lent is a wonderful time
to practice self-less giving, because it takes practice. This kind of
self-sacrificing generosity is a religious experience. It places us
in solidarity with the poor who share with each other, without having
any excess. It also joins us with Jesus, who gave himself completely,
for us. Establishing new patterns of giving will give real life and
joy to Lent.
Practicing
Penance
When I sprain my ankle, part of the healing process will involve
physical therapy. It's tender, and perhaps it is swollen. It may be
important to put ice on it first, to reduce the inflammation. I may
want to wrap it an elevate it and stay off of it. Then I will need to
start moving it and then walking on it, and eventually, as the injury
is healed, I'll want to start exercising it, so that it will be stronger
than it was before, so that I won't as easily injure it again.
Penance is a remedy, a medicine, a spiritual therapy for the
healing I desire. The Lord always forgives us. We are forgiven without
condition. But complete healing takes time. With serious sin or with
bad habits we've invested years in forming, we need to develop a therapeutic
care plan to let the healing happen. To say "I'm sorry" or
to simply make a "resolution" to change a long established
pattern, will have the same bad result as wishing a sprained ankle would
heal, while still walking on it.
Lent is a wonderful time to name what sinful, unhealthy, self-centered
patterns need changing and to act against them by coming up with a strategy.
For example, if the Lord is shining a light into the darkness of a bad
pattern in my life, I can choose to "stop doing it." But,
I have to work on a "change of heart" and to look concretely
at what circumstances, attitudes, and other behaviors contribute to
the pattern. If I'm self-indulgent with food, sex, attention-seeking
behaviors and don't ask "what's missing for me, that I need to
fill it with this?" then simply choosing to stop the pattern won't
last long. Lasting healing needs the practice of penance.
What does it mean to "fast"?
To fast is to do without food. Its purpose is to experience
the effects of not eating. It also serves to be a penance or a sacrifice
- for the purpose of strengthening us. When we don't eat, for even a
little while, we get hungry. When we get hungry, we have a heightened
sense of awareness. If, when we eat too much, we have a sluggish feeling,
when we fast, we have a feeling of alertness. Fasting is a wonderful
exercise whenever we want to sincerely ask for an important grace from
God. It is not that our fasting "earns" God's attention, but
by fasting, we clarify our thinking and our feeling. It is purifying
and prepares us to pray more deeply.
When do I fast?
Catholics, as a group, are required to fast on only two days
of the year - Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. On these days, fasting
means something very specific and limited. It means that one eats only
one full meal in a day, with no food in-between meals. It is understood
that two other meals, if one eats three meals a day, should not total
one full meal. One might fast in a more complete way, i.e., eating only
a portion of a single meal.
Of course, anyone is free to fast at any time that it is helpful
for their prayer and reflection. It is not recommended that anyone with
impaired health should fast in any way. It is also important to note
that everyone who fasts should drink enough fluids on a fast day.
What does it mean to
"abstain"?
To abstain is to not eat meat. Its purpose is to be an act
of penance - an act of sacrifice, that helps us grow in freedom to make
much bigger sacrifices. Of course, it would not make sense to make the
sacrifice of not eating meat, and then eat a wonderful meal I might
enjoy even more. Many people eat a vegetarian diet, for a variety of
reasons, and eating meat is not even an issue. It might be possible
to abstain from a non-meal that I really like, on all the Fridays of
Lent. It should be noted that many people in this world cannot afford
to eat meat or do not have access to it. Part of our abstaining from
meat can place us in solidarity with so many of our sisters and brothers
around the world.
Cooking as Prayer
If prayer is "raising our minds and hearts to God,"
and being in a relationship with God, then anything can be prayer. And
preparing a meal can certainly be a wonderful prayer. And, if our cooking
is for our family or others with whom we live, then it can be a great
act of love.
It starts, as always, with desire. While I'm putting on my
apron, or getting out my equipment, I can begin by naming my desire
for this time.
"Dear Lord, as you nourish us with your love, let me prepare
this nourishment with you at my side. Give me the joy of being creative
and loving, self-sacrificing and generous. As part of my baptism and
my priesthood, let me offer this meal as a religious experience for
me and for my family. As I prepare, help me to contemplate the women
of the campos and barrios and villages around the world who are preparing
meals today for their families - with great love, and with what they
have. Thank you for your love. I now prepare to share it. Amen."
Of course, we could add many words that are special to our
circumstances.
"Let this meal nourish Pedro with your love. He so full of tension
and worry. I love him and deeply desire to offer him this meal as something
different, and a sign of my care and our faith." "Oh, Lord,
Meg needs you so much these days. She seems so distracted and not herself.
Through our prayer and the sharing of this meal, give her the security
of your love. And through our faith in your dying and rising for us,
help her place the difficulties she is experiencing at school into her
relationship with you."
Just imagine how different our "getting dinner together"
can be, if we fill those early busy moments of preparation with prayer,
naming our desires so explicitly.
One of the easiest and simplest meals that can place us in
solidarity, in even a symbolic way, with much of the poor of the world
is Rice and Beans. This meal is healthy, nourishing and filling. Praying
with its preparation and eating it - feeling humble and honored to share
it with our sisters and brothers in so many countries - can be a great
source of devotion for us and our families.
But, there are many other meatless and simple meals that can
off us similar graces.
The First Four Days
of Lent
These days serve as an introduction to our Lenten journey.
Before we begin the first full week of Lent, we have a powerful set
of readings about our Prayer, Repentance, Almsgiving and Fasting. We
place ashes on our foreheads and learn about the meaning of death and
life. Over two days we pray over the powerful challenge of Isaiah 58.
And Jesus reminds us that he is inviting us to a "change of heart."
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