The Three Practices of Lent: Praying, Fasting. Almsgiving

fast from watching television one night each week so that you can spend time on a Lenten practice, such as praying, reading the Bible, serving others
fast from one movie during Lent and give the money… and the time in service to others
fast from using foul language and put-downs and start affirming the good in other people
fast from buying new things like clothes, music, magazines, or jewelry and make a donation…
fast from spending money on entertainment and make a donation of time or money that serves others
fast from holding resentments and start practicing forgiveness
fast from gossiping or being dishonest and start the practice of always being truthful and honest
fast from a favorite snack food or drink and set aside the money you would have spent to donate to a special charity
fast from being angry or upset with people who have hurt or offended you, and pray for the courage to forgive them
fast from feeling guilty and angry at yourself for things you have done wrong, instead remember God’s great love for you

Praying
read the Lenten Scripture readings through Lent; here’s a list for each week of Lent:
(1) Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18 (Ash Wednesday)
(2) Matthew 4:1-11 (1st Sunday)
(3) Matthew 17:1-19 (2nd Sunday)
(4) John 4:5-42 (3rd Sunday)
(5) John 9:1-41 (4th Sunday)
(6) John 11:1-45 (5th Sunday)
(7) Matthew 21:1-11 (Passion Sunday)
(8) John 13:1-15 (Holy Thursday)
(9) John 18:1—19:42 (Good Friday)
(10) John 20:1-9 (Easter)
participate in Ash Wednesday services
participate in the Stations of the Cross during Lent
participate in the Lenten Sunday liturgies
participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation during Lent
spend fifteen minutes a day praying during Lent: give thanks to God for all your blessings, pray for a specific personal need prompted by the day's experience,
and pray for those who are in need or suffering in your community and the world

Serving/Almsgiving
donate personal possessions, such as clothes, books, shoes, to people in need
dedicate time for service during Lent, e.g., working at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter, helping people in your neighborhood such as the elderly
donate food or money saved by fasting to the parish or community food pantry, food bank, or homeless shelter
cook a meal for the soup kitchen or homeless shelter,
gather some friends to help volunteer at a local soup kitchen, homeless shelter or nursing home several hours per week during Lent
learn more about feeding the hungry by contacting Bread for the World, 1100 Wayne Ave., Suite 1000, Silver Spring, MD 20910 (301-608-2400)
learn more about addressing human rights violations around the world by contacting Amnesty International, 322 8th Ave., New York, NY 10001; 212-807-8400 (amnesty.org)
learn more about the ways you can help others around the world by contacting netaid.org
volunteer to read books and magazines to the elderly who are no longer able to read
help others learn to read by becoming a literacy trainer or volunteer to tutor children
work to change the structures of injustice by joining the work of NETWORK, a national Catholic social justice lobby at 801 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Washington, DC 20003-2167 (networklobby.org)
work to overcome child sweatshops by supporting the work of Free the Children, which builds rehabilitation and educational centers for children freed from sweatshop labor, (FTP, 603 N. Oak St., Falls Church, VA 22046, 703-534-7045)
support the work of the hospice movement to provide compassionate low-cost, in-patient and at-home care for the terminally ill, contact the National Hospice Movement at 1-800-658-8898
give the gift of sight by donating old eyeglasses or unused frames to the local Lion’s Club who recycles them to the poor
support the national work of Covenant House as they house and care for homeless youth (P.O. Box 731, Times Square Station, NY, NY 10108-0731)
support the work of Project Clean Your Desk, which delivers pencils, paper and other supplies to resource-starved rural schools were children drop out because their families cannot afford these provisions. Organizing packets are available from Project Clean Your Desk, Quixote Center, Box 5206, Hyattsville, MD 20782 (301-699-0042)

This prayer is designed to be said within the family before a Crucifix during the first week of Lent.

Mother or a child: From the words of St. Paul (2 Cor. 6:1-2).

Dearly beloved, we entreat you not to receive the grace of God
in vain. For he says: In an acceptable time I have beard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

Father: This time of fasting has opened to us the gates of paradise. Let us accept it, praying and beseeching

Family: That on the day of resurrection we may be glorified in the Lord.

Father: Let us pray. Through the observance of Lent, O Lord, you purify your Church every year. See to it that your children lead a better life and so obtain the graces they are striving to acquire by doing penance. This we ask of you through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son.

Family: Amen. Favor this dwelling, Lord, with your presence. Far from it repulse all the wiles of Satan. Your holy angels — let them live here, to keep us in peace. And may your blessing remain always upon us. This we ask of you through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son.

Father: Let us bless the Lord.

Family: Thanks be to God.

Father: May the almighty and merciful Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bless and keep us.

Family: Amen.

Prayer Source: Holy Lent by Eileen O'Callaghan, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1975

Perhapps this sermon can answer your question:

A Voice in the Desert

Monday February 14, 2005 First Week of Lent

Reading (Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18) Gospel (St. Matthew 25:31-46)

In the Gospel reading today, Our Lord makes very clear the point regarding judgment, that the judgment is going to be based upon our actions. Now our actions are also predicated upon our faith. Those who are not Catholic always like to point out that it is by faith alone that you are saved. It never says that once in Sacred Scripture. In fact, in Saint James it says: You are not saved by faith alone. It is the only time in the entire Bible that the words “faith alone” come up, so it is very clear that it is not on faith alone that we are going to be saved. However, faith is required for salvation. But if we are going to say that we believe, then what is required is to act upon what we believe. That is precisely what Our Lord is telling us today, that it is in the actions we do toward other people that we are going to be judged.

If we are going to say that we believe in Christ, then the first thing we have to be able to do is to see Christ in other people and treat them as Christ. Now some people make it very difficult to be able to see Christ in them. Yet, at the same time, if we ask ourselves, “How did Our Lord treat those who mistreated Him,” it was still with charity. He was silent when they treated Him badly. He prayed for those who put Him to death; He did not condemn them. Then we look at ourselves and ask, “How many times have we, in essence, condemned others? How many times have we told them in reality that we hope they do not go to heaven, because we have told them that they are to go elsewhere? How many times have we treated people in a way that is unjust, in a way that is uncharitable?”

We look at Our Lord, and when it came to the Pharisees it was not that He was always “Mr. Nice.” People have this idea that to be a Christian means everything has to be “nicey-nice.” Nowhere in Scripture are you going to find that either. From our own Lord’s mouth, we hear terms like “brood of vipers,” as He calls the Pharisees. But what He is doing is telling them the simple truth, and He is calling them to conversion, to true conversion. To treat somebody with charity does not mean that we do not acknowledge the truth. If someone is doing something wrong, we can acknowledge that they are doing something wrong; but the difference is that we do not want to sit back and play the judge. It is up to God to determine who goes which direction. And the determination of where we are going to go is based in part on our belief in Jesus Christ; but the greatest part, on what we do with that belief, on how we act in accordance with that belief.

Even in the Old Testament, as we heard in the Book of Leviticus this morning, we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are called to act with justice. For instance, Moses told the people that they are not to curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, they are not to withhold the wages from the day laborer, they are not to lie, they are not to be deceptive, and these sorts of things. So we can look at our own lives and we can ask ourselves, “Where are the areas of injustice? Where are the areas where I am failing to act in charity? Where are the areas where if I really believe in Christ I would be doing something different?” That is what the Lord is going to be looking at. On the Day of Judgment, we are going to be judged according to what we have done in the flesh, as Saint Paul says, that is, according to our deeds. That is made very, very clear many times over in Scripture.

So, yes, we must believe, but then we must act upon that belief. And the best way to act upon that is to see Jesus Christ in other people and to treat those people as we would Christ. If it is difficult, all we need to do is remember Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who would go down the street and see somebody lying there who was dying and had open sores with insects crawling in them and all kinds of horrible diseases. She would pick them up off the street because she saw Jesus Christ in those people. That is not what we are having to deal with. Maybe we are dealing with some people who are unjust, who are nasty and mean, or whatever. But if we can try to see Christ in those people and treat them in accordance with that understanding, then we are going to change the way that we live, then we are going to be truly living the faith that we profess. That is the basis of our judgment, so it is not just a nice idea – it is a requirement if we want to be able to go to heaven. And that is exactly what Our Lord is telling us we have to do. The judgment is based upon our actions, good or evil, depending on what we do in the body.

* This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Reflection.

The object of our prayer-life is to empty ourselves and be filled with the Trinity. The first thing Jesus did when He became Man was to empty Himself.

"His state was Divine, yet He did not cling to His equality with God, but emptied Himself to assume the condition of a slave and become as men are; and as all men are, He was humbler yet." (Phil. 2:6,7)

Our mission in life, then, is to cooperate with God's Grace and empty ourselves and be filled with the Trinity.

We are not to seek detachment to be free of responsibility, but to enable us to love both God and man with a pure love.

We are not to withdraw from the world to be alone, but to be with God. We are to do penance, not because it erases our guilt, but because it wipes away the traces of sin.

We are to empty ourselves, not for the sake of self-control, but to be filled with God- transformed into Jesus.

There is no definite method by which we can become selfless. Each one of us has a particular virtue and faults that make the process of becoming like Jesus different. We must look at Jesus, read His Word in Scripture and ask His Spirit to enlighten our minds and give us that particular way by which we can best attain the goal He has set for us ....
Mother Angelica

Friday, Second Week of Lent
Fridays of Lent are days of abstinence from meat.

Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age. (Genesis 37:3)

Reflection.
O Divine Word, You humbled Yourself even unto death and willed to be treated as the least of men by sinners, by demons, and even by the Holy Spirit and by Your Eternal Father. You did all this to glorify your Father, to make reparation for the offenses committed against Him by pride, to confound and destroy our arrogance and to teach us to detest vanity and to love humility. Oh! how truly can we see that pride dishonors God and is very displeasing to Him, since it is necessary for you, the Son of God, to be so humiliated in order to atone for such dishonor!
We can truly say also that vanity is a monstrous thing since in order to destroy it, You were willing to be reduced to such humiliation! Oh! how firmly must we believe that in the eyes of God humility is an infinitely precious treasure and a jewel most pleasing to Him, since You, His divine Son, willed to be so humiliated to make us love this virtue, and to urge us to imitate You in the practice of it, and thus merit the grace to perform its works.' ..... St. John Eudes

Lenten Question

Q: What is a day of fast and abstinence?
A: Under current canon law in the Western Rite of the Church, a day of fast is one on which Catholics who are eighteen to sixty years old are required to keep a limited fast. In this country, one may eat a single, normal meal and have two snacks, so long as these snacks do not add up to a second meal.

Children are not required to fast, but their parents must ensure they are properly educated in the spiritual practice of fasting. Those with medical conditions requiring a greater or more regular food intake can easily be dispensed from the requirement of fasting by their pastor.

A day of abstinence is a day on which Catholics fourteen years or older are required to abstain from eating meat (under the current discipline in America, fish, eggs, milk products, and condiments or foods made using animal fat are permitted in the Western Rite of the Church, though not in the Eastern Rites.) Again, persons with special dietary needs can easily be dispensed by their pastor.

Lenten Action.

Share an answered prayer with a friend—give God credit in words. Remember to give thanks to God for what you received.

Prayer

Merciful Father, may our acts of penance bring us your forgiveness, open our hearts to your love, and prepare us for the coming feast of Your resurrection

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