On Ash Wednesday, a cross in ashes was traced on foreheads all over the world: "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." Lent has begun again. So what are you going to do about it?

Lent lasts from Ash Wednesday until Holy Thursday, and is a period of preparation for Easter, while those who are preparing to be baptized at Easter and who are known as catechumens, are completing their final preparations for the Easter sacraments. The actual forty days of Lent remind us of the forty years that Moses and the people wandered through the desert (Moses wouldn't stop and ask for directions....), the forty days and nights that Noah and his family were on the ark, and the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert before beginning his public ministry. We count the forty days of Lent from the First Sunday of Lent (this year, February 10) all the way until Holy Thursday (this year, March 20), including all the Sundays. The days from Ash Wednesday until the First Sunday of Lent, (Ash Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) though a part of the season of Lent, are not part of the 40 days of Lent. Rather, they are a kind of "head start" to the solemn beginning of Lent on February 10. During those first four days, we think about how we are going to enter into the spirit of the 40 days of Lent: what we are going to do, give up, take on, etc., so that we can sincerely and earnestly begin on the First Sunday of Lent, but, even those first four days are part of Lent, so you're not entirely off the hook!  

Lent is our chance to work on our daily lives as Christians. It's a kind of annual retreat, during which we spend a little more time than usual working on "getting holy." We do that in three ways: prayer, fasting, and works of charity. The things we do and give up during Lent, then, are not things that we stop doing once Easter comes. Rather, we should be adding these things to our daily lives, and getting rid of vices not just for Lent but forever!

So here are some ways of "getting into Lent":

Prayer:

• Sunday Mass every week - Mass times are Saturday at 4pm, Sunday at 6:45am, 8am, 9:30am, 11am, 12:30pm, and 5:30pm Life Teen
• Daily Mass at 6:45am and 9am
• Confession on every Saturday from 3-3:45pm or by appointment
• Pray every day for at least 15 minutes
• Read the Bible, especially the Gospel stories of Jesus' suffering and death
• Pray the rosary
• Visits to Jesus in the tabernacle at church
• Pray for peace
  

• Give up something: desserts, soda, internet use, TV, swearing, gossip, drinking, drug use, pornography, fighting with your family
• No meat on Fridays
• Go hungry on Fridays, voluntarily, in solidarity with the poorest of the poor

Works of Charity:

• Use the Rice Bowls to give money to the poor that you saved from not eating desserts, soda, internet use, etc.
• Give away your old clothes, CD's, toys, books
• Volunteer at a nursing home, hospital, shelter, soup kitchen, children's center
• Charity begins at home: with your brothers and sisters, parents, neighbors, friends
• Other Life Teen Service Projects

 
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