Dear Saints,
Believe it or not, Lent is already upon us!
It should come as no surprise that I’m less eager than ever to take up the practices of a penitential season. Life’s burdens seem heavy enough without the self-willed deprivation that Lent demands.
But just writing that, I realize how wrong I am. It’s actually the woe-is-me mentality that’s weighing me down, and Lent provides us with the perfect opportunity to turn that around. To that end, it’s ours to harness this holy season to better receive and reflect the generous other-oriented love of God, and so experience the easy-yoked and light-burdened life of following Jesus.
The goal of a good Lent is to center our hearts on God (who is love) and to become like him by giving ourselves generously away. There is no better way to grow in love of God, neighbor, and self than through the traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
It has dawned on me in recent years that we need to build a better Lenten baseline. Because we take this 40-day journey together, I’m asking you to commit – with all of us, your fellow parishioners – to adopting the following three life-changing and love-enabling disciplines:
1. Pray for 30 minutes a day
2. Fast every day except for Sundays and Solemnities
3. Give a true tithe (10%)
Don’t balk just yet! Remember (from my spin-class encouragements) that you can do hard things. Let’s explore these challenges in practical detail: I’ll present each discipline below with steps you might take to grow into it and helpful resources for additional support.
Prayer: pray for 30 minutes a day.
1. Our commitment to praying for 30 uninterrupted minutes a day reflects the wisdom of the saints. With almost universal testimony, the Church’s spiritual masters recommend half an hour of meditative silence a day.
2. If 30 minutes at a shot is too steep an ask, start this year with 15 minutes and add five a year. Don’t be discouraged – remember that making time for God is one of prayer’s most important accomplishments, and you learn to pray by praying!
3. If you would like a resource to help launch or develop your prayer life, check out Jacques Philippe’s Time for God.
Fasting: fast every day except for Sundays and Solemnities
1. Our commitment to eating only one main and two smaller meals every day in Lent helps us to check our desire for worldly pursuits and pleasures to focus more fully on God and meeting the demands of love.
2. If smaller meals with no snacking is too tough, start with a day or two a week (Friday and Wednesday are traditional fasting days) and add as we go, either through Lent or from one year to the next.
3. You can find good resources about fasting online, and I recommend Charles M. Murphy’s The Spirituality of Fasting: rediscovering a Christian practice.
Almsgiving: give a true tithe (10%)
1. In a money-driven world, there is no better way to prioritize the purposes of God than by giving the first ten percent of what we make to our parish. Almsgiving actually implies giving beyond a tithe, but we’ll use this year to help lock in a tithing baseline.
(By definition, a tithe is a ten-percent offering. It is an act of worship, which means it is a way of centering our lives on God and his purposes. You have probably seen that OLMC’s revenues have risen this year – I am making this appeal not for the sake of our budget, but for the sake of your spiritual wellbeing.)
2. Although I’d encourage you to jump in the deep end with the tithe, we all have to start somewhere. If you can’t give ten percent now, try increasing your offering one or two percent a year until you hit a true tithe (and then we can go beyond it!).
3. For resources on tithing, I’d recommend Randy Alcorn’s The Treasure Principle: unlocking the secrets of joyful giving, or his Managing God’s Money: a biblical guide.
That’s it, my friends. The best Lent of our lives awaits us. A life of eternal purpose, filled with love, joy, peace, and the like is on offer to us if we but turn from our ways to follow after Jesus. I hope you’ll join us on this incredible adventure.
You’ll find enclosed a flier outlining OLMC’s Lenten activities. It’s meant to be both informative and encouraging – we’re making every possible effort to take this season’s journey together.
If you need anything at all, my friends, please be in touch. You are in my thoughts and prayers, and I remain eager to serve you and serve alongside of you.
In the Peace of Christ,
Father Daniel
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ