Lent

I find the season of Lent so incredibly peaceful.  That's not to say that our house is the picture of tranquility, but I find deep peace in allowing life to slow down ~ simple meals, more time devoted to prayer, purging my life of extra stuff that accumulates around me.  Shannon has joked that he's afraid that he may be tossed out some year during the great Lenten cleansing.  I do get a little aggressive at times, but that would certainly never happen.

As a family we give up sweets, then each of us chooses an extra sacrifice suited to our spiritual needs and growth at the moment.  This year we also included finding a saint to intercede for us, assisting us in our journey towards holiness.  Thank you, Father David and Maria , for inspiring us!

While Shannon and I were under the impression that almost every Catholic fasted during Lent, we've found this to be not so true.  While I'm certainly not criticizing others' choices, this recent realization forced me to think about the purpose of "giving up" something for Lent versus doing something more for God.

While in Costco recently, Nickles was making his case for the cookie sample offered, "Mom, I'm sure there's no sugar in those cookies."

In the middle of my explanation of why we were going to forego the cookie, a friend from church who was standing nearby interjected, "We don't give up sugar and those kind of things for Lent, otherwise all we do is obsess about what we cannot have."

While I was deeply appreciative of her insight, and totally know all about obsessing about a Snickers bar, Nickles certainly didn't need support for his argument.

This statement, this "adding something in" versus "giving something up," I pondered at length prior to Ash Wednesday.  After reading the Catechism as well as the Bible on fasting, I realized that we are all called to prayer AND fasting, AND almsgiving especially during the Lenten season.  As Shannon pointed out, we aren't simply giving something up for the sake of giving something up.  It is a fast. And a fast is different than simply trying to eliminate something from our lives because we think we should.  We are bending our will and uniting our human passions to those of Christ.  Will we fail and stuff an M&M in our mouth that we happened to discover while cleaning our son's closet?
More than likely!
But then we refocus and march on.  We shouldn't give up before we even try.

Is Lent a perfect opportunity to "add something in" for Christ?
Absolutely.
The "adding" is our prayer. The "giving up" is fasting.  And for almsgiving our family typically donates the money saved from what we fast from.  Donuts on Sunday, Arizonas for midday pick-me-ups, cold showers, meals....they all add up to a tidy little sum at the end of these 40 days.
Prayer, fasting, almsgiving ~ we are called to all three as difficult as that may be to do!
And as difficult as that is to explain to a five-year-old, that is what our family is striving for this Lent.

Our Crown of Thorns ~

We remove toothpicks as we make sacrifices.

Hopefully, the toothpicks will be gone by Easter.