Lent: Renewal, Conversion, Prayer.

Tomorrow we begin our Lenten journey as we mark ourselves with ashes from the palm leaves burned over the past few years.  This is a time for change, a time for new beginnings, a time to really follow Christ.  So, how can we make this Lent the most significant one we have ever experienced?

A few thoughts.  Start small!  Don’t make goals and promises for yourself that will become too much of a burden three days into Lent.  Just like we need to begin a new exercise routine with “baby steps” in order to prevent burnout, we need to approach our spiritual body in a similar way.  For example, instead of saying you are going to pray the rosary everyday during Lent, perhaps make it a goal to say the Hail Mary prayer before bed and when you wake up.  How to best do this?  Put the Hail Mary prayer on your bathroom mirror – that’s probably one of the places you are at the beginning and end of each day.  This will remind you to say the prayer.

How to fast??  This is a tough one.  Again, small, simple, methods for success.  Pick one thing that you can fast from each day.  Look at your daily routine.  If you watch television each day at a particular time, then perhaps cut out  half an hour each day from the tv during the usual set times.  For example, if you always watch the nightly news for 30 minutes each day, maybe change your tv time to reading a spiritual book during that set time.  If someone in your home is watching television at that time – because they haven’t given up watching the nightly news for Lent, then remove yourself from that part of the house and take your spiritual book with you.  Dont, I repeat don’t, think you can read your spiritual book in the same room as the tv.  You will be distracted – I know from experience. 

Almsgiving.  Again, don’t choose the marathon of almsgiving for Lent this year.  I like the little cans for the poor idea.  Every evening, empty your change for the day into this can (whatever the giving might be directed towards).  Men especially have this routine when getting ready for bed.  Use a can, a jar, a cup, whatever you can place on the dresser and something you will see each day.  Women, you may need some kind of note that alerts you to doing the same thing, since you keep change in purses.  Perhaps, place a plastic sandwich bag in your change area of the purse and empty it each night into your can.  Why the note?  Because purses are usually kept (I think) downstairs or in places other than the bedroom.  You need that note to remind you to go, find the purse, and empty the change into the can.  It has to be each day.  The first time you look at that note and think: “I will do it tomorrow, I’m too tired to walk and get my purse”, the Lenten promise/goal/resolution starts to break-up and dissolve.  Most likely, you will forget the next day.  Spend the few minutes it takes to walk and get your purse in prayer for a particular petition: the Pope, the sick, the family.  Pray the Hail Mary or Our Father over and over during the time it takes you to get the purse, grab your baggie of change, empty it into your can, and return the baggie to the purse (or however works best to make sure that the baggie is back in the purse – or you will forget it for the next day).  This way, you can combine almsgiving and prayer into one!  Note: if you don’t have any change that day, then so be it, you will have coins to offer up many other times during Lent.

The key to any Lenten success is mind over matter.  Once the mind tells us we can take a break, or do something later, we begin to falter.  Don’t believe me??  Reflect upon past Lents and see if that was the case.  From personal experience, I can tell you that this temptation often occurs when I am outside my normal “habitat” or ordinary routine.  This is the most frequent place that our Lenten promises begin to fade.  Stick with it!!  The annoyance or “pain” you feel because it “hurts” in a sense to be faithful, is the most powerful moment of our Lenten journeys.  This is the true test of our Lenten goal.  Ask the angels, saints, and of course, the Blessed Mother, to help you! 

Lastly, if you do find yourself not being faithful to your original Lenten plan, then start over the next day afresh with the resolve to carry it out.  The easiest way to turn Lent into a “failure” is to find yourself quitting the goals you made and then treating the rest of Lent as any ordinary season of the year.  Remember, Jesus fell 3 times carrying the cross, if we mess up 30 times during Lent, then we keep picking ourselves up and trying to be faithful the next day.  What would Jesus rather have us do: stay face down in the dirt with our cross crushing us, or stand up, pick up the vehicle of our salvation, and continue on?

Blessed Lent to all and remember, small, small, small, Lenten goals!!