The Change of Season: Time for Lent!

Welcome (back) to my blog dear reader! I hope you enjoy your stay! 😄

The Season of Lent is upon us! Hence the Tuesday night upload. Ash Wednesday is tomorrow and Lent will continue until the Holy Week Triduum starting with Holy Thursday on April 9th. Last year around this time I made a post detailing the important things to know about the season, especially the rules for fasting and abstaining from eating meat. You can read that post if you would like, right here. So, what am I doing for Lent this year? I am glad you asked, dear reader.

The 3 main things Catholics are asked to do during Lent are Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving. Much like how I decided on my New Year's Resolutions based on specific categories, I prayed about what to include in those 3 requirements. Usually, if I feel like something will be a challenge and I am a bit hesitant to attempt doing a sacrifice, that thing is a sacrifice I should make in an area of my life that needs spiritual help.

First is prayer. I have been saying my daily rosary and doing a daily devotional with the daily Mass readings since the beginning of the year so I wanted to add a little bit more. Through people, I trust on Catholic social media I was able to find a couple of devotionals specifically designed for use during Lent. They are simple but will require more effort and focus on my part to complete every day. They are Bishop Robert Barron’s Lenten Gospel Reflections and Father Michael J. Denk’s Complete 40-Day Prayer Program. I am really excited to start them tomorrow. I might even review them after Lent is over. Hmm, something to think about for April.

Another element to prayer is worship through music. To incorporate that into my daily life during Lent I am giving up all secular music even when I am driving in the car. So I will have worship music playing or total silence on my commute. This is gonna be a tough one since I greatly dislike silence in the car.

Next up is fasting. Now, this does not just have to be from food. And with my history of something of an eating disorder, this is probably a good thing. The requirement for someone of my age is to fast in between meals on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. This means 2 small meals not equal to 1 full meal plus 1 full meal. On Fridays in Lent, I am required to abstain from eating meat. That is as far as I go for fasting in order to be safe and healthy.

Another way to fast is to give up certain things. Like I mentioned before I am giving up part of my music library. One of the other things I am giving up is my large coffee mug. The cup of coffee I usually have every morning is about 1.5 times the size of a normal 8 oz. mug. So during Lent, I will be using a smaller mug. I am not giving up caffeine entirely since that would be the opposite of helpful for myself and the people around me. But I do want to make a small sacrifice.

The second thing I am giving up is profanity. Now I know that this will be a challenge and I have an idea of what to do if I slip up. Each time a swear leaves my mouth it will be $0.25 that I add to the Rice Bowl charity collection that my family is doing. I am donating to the Rice Bowl anyway but any time I slip up will be an additional quarter I contribute. This way even if I make a mistake there will still be some good that comes from it. It also incorporates the Almsgiving element of Lent.

I am also giving up my “unlimited time” on social media. Like any millennial, or anyone in 2020 with a smartphone, if we are honest with ourselves, I am addicted to my phone and being online. So starting tomorrow I will only have 1 hour per day to check Twitter and Instagram. To help with that I am deleting the apps for all my socials from my phone. I will still be checking DMs during that hour and on Sundays so feel free to still shoot me a message if you want to talk, dear reader. I would love to hear from you.

Connected to social media is this blog. Last year I did not post for the duration of Lent and I am doing the same thing this year. There is a lot of time that goes into the planning, outline brainstorming and writing of this page so I want to take a step back and use that time to improve my spiritual life. That way I can come back better than before and keep improving this blog.

I hope you have a beautiful and fruitful Lent, dear reader. Know that you are in my prayers and I will see you on April 15th.

☀️💙