Lotsa Links for Lent
And on Wednesday, LENT begins!
I am taking this weekend to prepare for lent in all my roles - mother, child of God, and homeschool teacher.
Our most definitive offering during lent is one we've been doing for a decade. Our idea was been a story in Catholic newspapers and magazine articles. We create a Lenten prayer basket and draw from it names to pray for every night during lent. Each prayer recipient recieves a note from us telling them of their day and our prayers. We have truly seen the hand of God at work in this family tradition.
A new organizing tool we'll use this year comes from my blog-friend, Nadja at Patch "O Dirt Farm and I have printed one of these commitment forms for each of us.
We post a calendar from CHC's A Year with God to mark our way, week by week to Easter with a virtue to practice (pg.104-105) I hope to commit to more spiritual reading on a regular basis. I'll let you know when I choose the book.
Little ones will spend time coloring the Stations of the Cross and the children will hopefully again assist our homeschool Pastor in saying the Stations of Fridays.
We'll pray outside an abortion facility, especially on Good Friday.
And on that Good Friday, as is our tradition, we'll be as silent as we can from noon to 3pm while watching Jesus of Nazareth. Then we'll paint eggs to find on Saturday. Sunday we will yell, "He is Risen, indeed!", celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and have a brunch with our families.
To keep our lenten focus, as often there are attacks when we step-up our spirituality, I remember something I wrote last lent after failure.
Twelve Steps to recommiting after falling off the Lenten wagon
1. Admit we are powerless —that our lives have become unmanageable. - Act of Humility
2. Believe that the Holy Spirit can restore us to sanity. - Come Holy Spirit
3. Decide to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Jesus thru Mary - Daily Consecration/Morning Offering
4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. - Marian examination of conscience
5. Admit to God, to ourselves, and to a Priest the exact nature of our wrongs. - Confession
6. Become entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. - Act of Contrition
7. Humble ourselves, ask Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Restitution. Do good and ask forgiveness of those we've hurt.
9. Call on the intercession of the Saints! ~ Litany
10. Continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit it. - Nightly Examination
11. Seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. - The Lord's Prayer
12. Work toward a spiritual awakening/deeper conversion as the result of these steps, practicing these principles and recommiting every time I fall off the wagon.
God bless you as we enter into this most holy of seasons.
PLEASE share your traditions and practices for Lent.
I am taking this weekend to prepare for lent in all my roles - mother, child of God, and homeschool teacher.
Our most definitive offering during lent is one we've been doing for a decade. Our idea was been a story in Catholic newspapers and magazine articles. We create a Lenten prayer basket and draw from it names to pray for every night during lent. Each prayer recipient recieves a note from us telling them of their day and our prayers. We have truly seen the hand of God at work in this family tradition.
A new organizing tool we'll use this year comes from my blog-friend, Nadja at Patch "O Dirt Farm and I have printed one of these commitment forms for each of us.
We post a calendar from CHC's A Year with God to mark our way, week by week to Easter with a virtue to practice (pg.104-105) I hope to commit to more spiritual reading on a regular basis. I'll let you know when I choose the book.
Little ones will spend time coloring the Stations of the Cross and the children will hopefully again assist our homeschool Pastor in saying the Stations of Fridays.
We'll pray outside an abortion facility, especially on Good Friday.
And on that Good Friday, as is our tradition, we'll be as silent as we can from noon to 3pm while watching Jesus of Nazareth. Then we'll paint eggs to find on Saturday. Sunday we will yell, "He is Risen, indeed!", celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and have a brunch with our families.
To keep our lenten focus, as often there are attacks when we step-up our spirituality, I remember something I wrote last lent after failure.
Twelve Steps to recommiting after falling off the Lenten wagon
1. Admit we are powerless —that our lives have become unmanageable. - Act of Humility
2. Believe that the Holy Spirit can restore us to sanity. - Come Holy Spirit
3. Decide to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Jesus thru Mary - Daily Consecration/Morning Offering
4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. - Marian examination of conscience
5. Admit to God, to ourselves, and to a Priest the exact nature of our wrongs. - Confession
6. Become entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. - Act of Contrition
7. Humble ourselves, ask Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Restitution. Do good and ask forgiveness of those we've hurt.
9. Call on the intercession of the Saints! ~ Litany
10. Continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit it. - Nightly Examination
11. Seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. - The Lord's Prayer
12. Work toward a spiritual awakening/deeper conversion as the result of these steps, practicing these principles and recommiting every time I fall off the wagon.
God bless you as we enter into this most holy of seasons.
PLEASE share your traditions and practices for Lent.
13 comments:
Oh, this is good JMJ!
Oh, this is good JMJ!
Yes, this is very useful. No excuses now!
You have a wonderful agenda! Thanks for sharing such thoughtful, prayerful ideas! It has inspired me to "get thinking"!
What beautiful traditions you have created for your family. Certainly gives me plenty to think about for our own home. They are simple yet powerful. Simplicity is always most appealing to me. God bless you and your family.
This is a doable plan, and includes all the important elements: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
Well done.
You can't have one withouth the other: prayer, fasting, almsgiving. You are a wonderful inspiration to me. May God be with you and your family now and always, not just Lent. I'm so looking forward to this journey this year . . . I feel more ready than I ever have to let God have His way with my will.
Please keep me in your prayers - I really need a strong prayer warrior! Thank you - and rest assured, you are in mine as well.
i love you. thanks so much for this. i have been under the weather this last week and i was feeling the pressure as to "what will we do", but thanks to all of your hard work, now i have lots of ideas! have a very blessed week.
ps. don't you just love everything that st. peter eymard writes, i probably told you that before...
Hi everybody! :)
(Love you too Regan - hope you're feeling better)
A friend was an instrument of God to me today. She wrote that after seeing EWTN Mass this morning that it was a not-to-miss Fr. Frank Pavonne homily. It got me thinking about how no-nonsense those Mass are, free from error and usually with GREAT homilies.
I am thinking that for Lent I am being led to try to pray the noon TV Mass (during lunch) with EWTN and be inspired daily by God's word....starting today.
Hugs to my girls!
Wonderful post, Allison. I am posting a bunch of stuff on Lent this week and hope to post a few things especially aimed at children later today if I get a chance.
God bless you and your family on your Lenten journey...
Thanks for sharing your traditions!
This is a terrific list! I love your blog!
Another great post with lots to consider. With all on my plate, I find my thoughts about Lent and the potential for spiritual growth get siderailed at times. So, reading lots of ideas to inspire me (and remind me to not 'give up' when falling off the Lenten wagon helps me to focus as Ash Wednesday arrives.
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