Making Lent a Season of Positivity

The season of Lent is almost here.  Ash Wednesday is next week!  For most, Lent brings to mind giving something up, fish on Fridays, increased darkness, and a more somber mood in church.  It is true that Lent is a particularly penitential season as we prepare to celebrate the passion of Jesus and his resurrection on Easter Sunday.  But, that is not its sole purpose.

In the early years of the Church, Lent was a time of preparation for those who would be entering the Church at Easter.  The forty days of Lent were meant to recall other forty-day or forty-year periods from the bible – the forty days and nights of rain causing the Flood in Genesis, the Israelites’ forty years of wandering in the desert after captivity in Egypt, Jesus spending forty days in the desert prior to beginning his public ministry.

Viewed from this lens, the forty-day period of Lent can take on a sense of purification and change.  We are readying ourselves to celebrate more fully at Easter.  We are encouraged to participate in the sacrament of reconciliation during Lent for this purpose.  We are encouraged to make a positive change in our lives, whether that means giving up a bad habit or adding a new, good one.

Though we enter into this season with a sense of (figurative) sackcloth and (literal) ashes, try to think of ways in which you can make this Lent a season of positivity rather than simply dwelling on the negative aspects that sometimes seem to take center stage during this time.

Rare Readings

This coming Sunday is the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time.  It is rare for us to have a Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, let alone a Sixth, and we hardly ever have an Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time.  Why is this?

Blame it on the moon.

I’m serious.  The date of Easter is determined based on when the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox is.  That’s a lot of firsts!

Since we usually don’t get this far before Lent starts, the readings for the past Sunday and the next two Sundays aren’t as familiar to us.  Pay close attention to these next few weeks.  Try to discern what God is trying to communicate to you through these rare readings.

Enhance your Experience at Mass

Have you ever noticed that sometimes the readings at Sunday Mass seem to be particularly relevant to what you are going through in your life at the time?  I have been noticing a link between the message of the readings and what our RCIA candidates and catechumens are learning about in our Tuesday night sessions.  We examined the sacrament of Baptism in depth shortly after the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  Shortly before we took a deeper look at the Mass in RCIA, we had readings which detailed the beginnings of Jewish worship practices.  This week we looked at the sacrament of Reconciliation, which is very appropriate with Lent, the penitential season of the Church, right around the corner.

Of course, sometimes it is more difficult to find a link between your current circumstances and the readings at Mass.  To reflect on how God is speaking to you in the readings each week, you could consider practicing what the Church calls Lectio Divina.  Lectio Divina has four steps: Read (lectio), Meditate (meditatio), Pray (oratio), and Contemplate (contemplatio).

Read:  Choose a scripture passage.  It can be a passage from the Liturgy of the Hours or a reading from the daily or upcoming Sunday Mass.  Read it slowly.  Perhaps, read it several times.

Meditate:  Ask yourself what God is trying to convey to you through this scripture passage.  Were there parts that challenged you?  Parts that comforted you?  If you practice Lectio Divina in a group, after a period of silent meditation, you may share some of your thoughts with the group in what is called a “shared echo”.

Pray:  Speak to the Lord in whatever way the scripture passage inspires you to.  You may offer praise and thanksgiving to God, or you may ask for pardon or for a specific petition.  Or, you may just have an informal conversation with God about what is happening in your life at the moment.

Contemplate:  Think about the major themes in the scripture passage you read.  How do they apply to your life at the moment?  Do you need to make a change in your life to better follow God’s path?  If so, how?

If this kind of prayer sounds appealing to you, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and Catholic.Bible publish a weekly Lectio Divina resource for the Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday.  You can subscribe to receive it by e-mail.  Simply complete the form at the bottom on this page.

Snow Day

Many Wasatch Front school districts as well as diocesan schools called a “snow day” yesterday.  Snow days are rare in Utah.  The last time I remember a snow day being declared, I was in elementary school at Cosgriff!  My mom was driving the carpool that morning, and we arrived (after a very harrowing drive) to find teachers outside the building with signs reading, “No power, no heat, no school!”  Going further back, in 1993 we had a snow day that dumped enough snow to be over my 13-year-old brother’s head.  We stayed home and made a home video for my grandmother’s 80^th birthday that day.

Snow days can bring out the best in people or they can bring out the worst.  Some take childlike delight in the activities that a large snowfall affords.  One of the boys in my neighborhood took the opportunity to test out his go-kart (even though he doesn’t have snow tires).  Others gripe about how much there is to clean up.  Shoveling can be very difficult work, and snow blowing can be almost as difficult if there is a ton of snow.  Of course, snow days can cause headaches for parents who still have to go to work, leaving them scrambling to find childcare for their kids who won’t be at school that day.

With the big gap between snow days, we may have lost our wonder at the power of God and nature to produce such a marvelous thing as a foot or more of snow overnight (in some locations).  It is an awesome thing, in the truest sense of the word.  Just take a look at the piles of plowed snow the next time you visit the parish!

How did you spend yesterday’s snow day?  What was your attitude about it?