The clock is ticking down to Ash Wednesday and I'm still wondering what I'm going to "do" for Lent. I am a little bit jealous of my husband, who never worries about it, but cheerfully gives up chocolate every single year and calls it good. As I have written in previous years, I have sworn off all non-obligatory food-related sacrifices because they mess with my head. I think maybe I was on to something when I wrote this post before Lent another year:
Do you think maybe it's backwards to try to think "hmm, what can I give up for Lent? Something that I like, something that's a sacrifice, hmm…"
Do you think maybe it might be better to think first "What particular virtue do I want to develop, or what bad habit or vice do I want to eliminate? How could I fulfill my vocation better?" …… and then, having answered that question, to consider what sacrifice would actually serve that goal? I mean, maybe chocolate is really hard to give up, but maybe it's not a chocolate-free Lent that would best help you grow in holiness. Unless you have a disordered attachment to sweets in particular, and you think chocolate is actually getting between you and God, and that's what you're hoping to work on.Or is that just me being overly analytical?
I need something to read, for one thing. One of the most rewarding things I ever did during Lent was read the Diary of Sister (now Saint) Faustina — the one who saw the Divine Mercy apparitions. I came out of it with a much better understanding of what the Church means when it calls an apparition "worthy of belief," which isn't the same as coming right out and saying "This really really happened exactly the way the visionary said it did and you have to believe it really happened." Because even if you were to assume that St. Faustina was delusional or mistaken about what happened to her (I guess it doesn't work if you assume she was a liar), you would find that her writings about her experience, the thoughts she took away from them and transcribed, are true to the Gospel and inspire love of Christ. Probably more than anything you're likely to read here.
I was thinking about paying $3 for a pdf of Amy Welborn's newly refurbished, Lenten-devotional form of her late husband Michael Dubrueil's work The Power of the Cross. (She has it in forms that should work on your Kindle, Nook, iPad, or iPhone; not having any of these I was going to go for the pdf.) Or I might pull Fulton Sheen's Life of Christ off my bookshelf — it's just about the right length for Lent. Or I might start re-reading Volume 1 of Jesus of Nazareth, since Volume 2 will be released next week, and I could take them as a whole.
Last year I didn't give up computer time, facebook, email, or blogging, on the theory that to do so would be the equivalent of giving up answering the phone or opening the mail. And I probably won't do so this year either. But one thing I did do was set time limits around my internet usage, and that turned out to be pretty valuable. So I may do that again this year. I also thought that I might consider which of the political blogs I follow tend to be the most destructive to my internal peace, and temporarily delete them from my reader.
My schedule is such that I get about two opportunities a week to visit the Adoration chapel all by myself for more than an hour. Only I rarely, or never, actually use the time for this. I always have something else to do (and in fact I do not think of these time blocks as "opportunities to visit the chapel" but rather as "planning time" or "me time.") I think I may try using these time blocks for Adoration instead. It would probably be good for me to give up planning time to God. Theoretically his plans work out better than mine anyway.
Well, that's enough of that: it's almost time to start school. So, comments topic of the day: Not "what are you thinking about doing this year," but let's look for evidence of good ideas from the past. In your most fruitful Lents, what were the sacrifices or devotions that enriched you the most?
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