FEBRUARY 26, 2006

Traditionally on New Year's Day, we all make resolutions - promises of things we will do to make us better persons. Traditionally, by the end of January, all of our resolutions have been broken, and we are back to our old selves. Traditionally, we get another crack at self improvement when Lent comes around a month or so later. That time is now.

The favorite question at this time of year when I was a kid was: "What are you giving up for Lent?" Kids gave up candy and gum, adults gave up smoking and drinking, everybody gave up eating in between meals and going to movies. We all did this in a spirit of penance and spiritual righteousness to cleanse ourselves for the coming of the Lord's Resurrection. Lent was good for the soul - not to mention the benefits to our teeth, lungs, livers, waistlines and pocketbooks. Some of us even made it through the whole forty days and stuck to our penances and resolutions, but we usually did so with a great deal of moaning and groaning and in general making everybody around us well aware of (and miserable at) our heroic virtue.

Now, I heartily recommend and encourage the continual use of mortification and fasts for Lent, as they are in fact helpful for body and soul. I even intend to practice some of these things myself. (No, I will not tell you what I am giving up for Lent: too many people will try to keep tabs on me, and be far too gleeful when I fail!) But this type of approach to Lent seems to carry a negative connotation: being deprived of something, doing without something.

Maybe we all can also try something more positive and affirmative as our parish and personal observance of Lent. We are offering a number of extra activities at for Lent: Tuesday Evening Mass (which will become our St. Anthony Novena Mass in a couple of weeks); Friday Stations of the Cross and Benediction; the Parish Share Appeal in which we contribute to the work of the Church in the diocese; the weekly ecumenical services on Mondays in which all the Christian Churches of Sto-Rox participate; a seasonal Penance Service; and, of course, our normal pattern of confessions, St. Anthony and Mother of Sorrows devotions after weekday Masses, and in particular, for our Parish, a brand new Mass schedule that we all have to adjust to with grace and resignation.

If we all make a special effort to participate in one or more of these activities, in addition to our personal penances, then we will have made an active, affirmative, positive contribution to the season of Lent.