Q: What are appropriate activities for ordinary days during Lent?
A: Giving up something we enjoy for Lent, doing of physical or spiritual acts of mercy for others, prayer, fasting, abstinence, going to confession, and other acts expressing repentance in general.
Q: Is the custom of giving up something for Lent mandatory?
A: No. However, it is a salutary custom, and parents or caretakers may choose to require it of their children to encourage their spiritual training, which is their prime responsibility in the raising of their children.
1. Give up all soda - I drink this in excess and it is becoming detrimental to my health. The soda controls me instead of me controling it.
2. Swearing - I have a horrible mouth and truly need to Sanctify my mouth. Bite my tongue until it bleeds.
Q: Is there such a thing as denying ourselves too many pleasures?
A: Most definitely. First, God made human life contingent on certain goods, such as food, and to refuse to enjoy enough of them has harmful consequences. For example, if we do not eat enough food it can cause physical damage or (in the extreme, even death). Just as there is a balance between eating too much food and not eating enough food, there is a balance involved in other goods.
Second, if we do not strike the right balance and deny ourselves goods God meant us to have then it can generate resentment toward God, which is a spiritual sin just as much as those of engaging in excesses of good things. Thus one can be led into sin either by excess or by defect in the enjoyment of good things.
Third, it can decrease our effectiveness in ministering to others.
Fourth, it can deprive us of the goods God gave us in order that we might praise him.
Fifth, it constitutes the sin of ingratitude by refusing to enjoy the things God wanted us to have because he loves us. If a child refused every gift his parent gave him, it would displease the parent, and if we refuse gifts God has given us, it displeases God because he loves us and wants us to have them.
"Lent offers us all a very special opportunity to grow in our relationship with God and to deepen our commitment to a way of life, rooted in our baptism. In our busy world, Lent provides us with an opportunity to reflect upon our patterns, to pray more deeply, experience sorrow for what we've done and failed to do, and to be generous to those in need."
I am wishing you time of blessings and prayer during the next 40 days! So, would you like to share with me what you are planning to do during Lent?
2 comments:
This year I'm giving up chocolate and soda. So far so good but it is hard!
You know, everytime i give up something fort Lent, that's the time when i feel that i can't go without that one thing. I tend to give up those things a week or two before, so i'm already in the habit by lenten season. spometimes it works, sometimes it don't...
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