Lent is coming…FAST!
It’s hard to believe, but the holy season of Lent is just around the corner, so I invite us all to prayerfully consider how we will enter in.
Ash Wednesday falls on February 14, which is the traditional date of the feast day of St. Valentine. I remind us all that, even though friends and family of other faiths may be celebrating romantic dinners or “Galintines,” this February 14th is a day of fasting and abstinence for all Catholics (one of those precepts of the Church from a few months ago here in the bulletin article). So make your plans to celebrate earlier in the week…or…take your special someone to the first Lenten Fish Fry put on by our intrepid Knights of Columbus that Friday!
As a parish, I ask us to all to pray and fast this Lent for our parish. The Lord went out into the desert for those 40 days to spiritually prepare for the mission the Father had in store for Him, namely, to reconcile fallen humanity back to the love of the Trinity. These upcoming 40 days can be a time of great spiritual preparation for us as well as we seek to know and live out the Father’s will for us at All Saints.
As you discern how to pray and fast this Lent, listen to where your heart is being drawn, invited. That’s where the Lord is moving.
Some prayer ideas: read a Gospel (or all 4!) cover to cover in a spirit of listening prayer; make a weekly visit to the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament; take 10 minutes of silence daily to let “heart speak to heart”; do a regular Rosary walk; attend a weekday Mass; try a new devotion, like the Divine Mercy Chaplet, Our Lady of Sorrows, praise and worship, Bible or Catechism in a Year podcast.
Some fasting ideas: only have water as your beverage at all meals; turn off the cable news; delete social media apps off your phone; make coffee at home rather than going out; make simple dinners at home rather than going to restaurants; give up snacking between meals; take a cool shower…again, where is your heart drawn?
No matter how you pray and fast this Lent, please do so at least in part for the future growth and flourishing of our parish…that the Lord find a welcome home in each of our hearts, that we become all the more a holy parish, a parish on fire with grace, a parish overwhelmed by the incredible news of the Lord Jesus Christ, Risen from the Dead, Conqueror over sin and death.
Praise be Jesus Christ, now and forever!
All you holy saints of God, pray for us!
In Him,
Fr. Michael
Pastor