Bishop Ricken
This week we begin our Lenten journey of 40 days in preparation for the high holy days of Holy Week, 2009. This season is a time to focus our efforts and attention on making more room for our relationship with Jesus Christ through the traditional triad of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
About fasting, the church requires Ash Wednesday and Good Friday to be days of fast and abstinence and the Fridays of Lent to be days of abstinence from meat. Fasting from food is certainly a worthy penance for most Americans, me included. However, there are other ways to fast, foregoing bad habits or negative addictions that may be holding one bound instead of making for true freedom. For example, giving up time before the television or the Internet and using that time for prayer would definitely be a positive step in the right direction.
Extra prayer is recommended to deepen one's relationship with Christ by making more time for quiet reflection and meditation or perhaps by going to daily Mass every day or several days of the week as a special offering throughout this Holy Season. Whatever one can do to enhance this call to a deeper communion with God is considered a worthy offering to fine-tune one's preparation for Easter.
Coming well prepared for Sunday Mass every Sunday, having gone over the readings and preparing oneself to really be present and participative at Mass are ways to increase the prayer in one's life. Praying the rosary and returning to Marian devotions is a great way to bring the family together to pray and also to read together the Scripture readings for the coming Sunday.
The almsgiving portion of the triad is to call us to look at our brothers and sisters around us and to extend a helping hand with our time, talent or treasure to lift the burdens of those who rub elbows with us or share in the life of our communities and need a helping hand to get through a difficult period of life. The economic downturn makes us aware of how we have been blessed and therefore, how incumbent it is upon us to lift the burdens of others as God leads us.
It also calls us to examine the way we spend money, looking for possible extravagances that we need to wean from our lives.
This traditional triad of actions calls us to make room for Christ by leaving behind behaviors or preoccupations that keep us from connection with Jesus throughout our day and living a life that is aware of his presence and love for us.
My prayer for all of you and for the Diocese of Green Bay is that we have a truly restorative Lent and that we grow in holiness and our relationship with Christ, the church and one another.
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