Faith
At Home in Church
I try to make it to Confession at least once a month and typically end up making it about twice per month. With the long lines at my parish, I have lots of time to think and meditate while I wait for my turn to receive absolution and a fresh start. I usually go on Saturday mornings when Confessions are heard right after the morning Mass. While in line, I’m able to observe fellow parishioners and their families soak up the replenishment that God’s house offers. I feel a real sense of peace waiting in that line, one that reminds me that God’s house is my home.
Our parishes are a safe refuge in the turmoil of the world. In the summer’s oppressive heat, they’re always delightfully cool. In the winter’s bitter cold, they radiate warmth. In the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, with all of the pressures and responsibilities that go with it, the Church is still, calm, and peacefully quiet. I hope that when you’re at Mass, you’re able to experience this peace without the demands of your life disrupting your meditation and pulling you back into the stresses of your life.
Have you ever been in your parish when there wasn’t anything going on? A random drop in on a Tuesday afternoon or at another time when you just stopped by to take a break and say hello to Jesus? There’s something truly magical about these times in a Church. While Alison’s family was in town, we visited the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. We were there on a Tuesday afternoon and the massive church was filled with only a few pilgrims. The sun’s rays poured in through the windows and the entire marble Cathedral was still. The beautiful mosaics glimmered as light bounced around and the whole atmosphere was one of rest. There was no noise, except for Benedict’s babbling, and there was no distraction. It was a place of peace, a place of prayer… it was home.
Churches are designed to connect us to our Creator. Their structural design and their interior design are all guided towards this end. Your Church may be physically laid out like a cross and adorned with stained glass windows depicting lives of the saints. Your Church may be physically laid out like a simple rectangle, but the interior design subtly draws you from the back of the church towards the altar. In the tabernacle God dwells among us, always waiting and ever present. At any time you can walk in, sit down, and pray in front of God Himself. What a wonderful thing!
We’re blessed to have a safe haven in our parishes. Many countries around the world do not share this same status. We can go to Mass and not worry about armed gunmen coming to abduct us, or an errant round of artillery falling on the roof. We experience an open and welcoming place, even if not from our fellow parishioners, from God Himself, welcoming us into His home. Truly, our parishes are like a home in every way, except that sleep is generally frowned upon.
We have so many stresses and pressures assailing us from the moment we get out of bed until we close our eyes at night. Let’s resolve to make better use of our parishes as places of peace and prayer. Let’s spend more than an hour a week in these wonderful places that are more that just buildings, and instead are places of rest in a desert of struggle.
The Burden of Freedom
Freedom is a wonderful thing. Since you’re reading this, you’re one of the lucky ones who has the freedom to use the Internet. You have the freedom to read uncensored content. You have the freedom to determine the course of your life. As Catholics, we also have freedom. We can choose the right or the wrong. We can do good or we can do evil. Freedom, in all of its glory, is morally neutral. In fact, freedom is a curse if you can’t control yourself.
Freedom is nothing without personal responsibility. We all have the opportunity to break laws and commit felonies, but personal responsibility demands that we conform our actions to just laws. We all have the opportunity to commit grave sin, but personal responsibility demands that we conform our actions to the direction of our rightly formed conscience. Addictions take away our freedom and make us subject to base desires. This lack of control becomes a curse as all of our actions and choices are determined by that which holds greatest sway over us.
Interestingly, unbridled freedom leads to a deep sense of unhappiness. Unbridled freedom allows us to hurt people and to act contrary to our own well being. We become consumed with self-centeredness, greed, and envy. We make choices that work against us. In some sense, while we don’t have unbridled freedom in society, we do have it in our morality. We’re given aids and controls through our faith, but it’s up to us to employ them. Our morality is given to us unbridled and it’s up to us to restrain it appropriately. God wants what’s best for you, and the boundaries that He suggests will do just that. It’s when we go outside of those boundaries that we become unhappy.
When it comes to happiness, good begets good. Like a good day that just keeps getting better, happiness tends to snowball. When it gets big enough, even the bad things that happen are minimized. Choosing the good and having control over oneself results in continuously happier outcomes. When we choose to reject unbridled freedom and instead insert personal responsibility into our morality and decision making, we experience the natural lift of good actions and choices stacked on top of each other.
Freedom is a burden for those who can’t control it. By adopting positive boundaries and embracing personal responsibility, we can maintain control over our lives and grow in peace, happiness, and joy.
Even Jesus was Tempted
I hate temptation. It’s always so exciting and alluring, especially if I give it any attention at all. All temptation needs is a moment of consideration and, like a fish going after the bait, it’s got me hooked. Not every fish ends up in the boat, however. We have innumerable chances to fight back and break the line before it’s too late. In those times, it can be helpful to remind ourselves that even Jesus was tempted.
No, not even the Son of God, who took on our humanity while retaining His divinity, was immune to temptation. In the desert He went toe-to-toe with Satan and yet, He resisted. In active ministry, He was tempted by the demons He encountered, and even was tempted to walk away from the horrific passion that He was about to endure. I think that there are three great truths contained in the story of Jesus’ temptation in the desert.
First, temptation will come. If it came to the Son of God, you can be certain that it will come to you. It will also be personalized, tailored just for you. Jesus was hungry in the desert, so He was offered food. Jesus was infinitely powerful, so He was offered an opportunity to prove it. Jesus knew He was going to suffer and die, so He was offered an opportunity to worship a new god. We all have weak links. Expect these weaknesses to be exploited and never give an inch.
Second, like Jesus, you can beat temptation. Jesus didn’t hem and haw, He responded decisively. He didn’t consider how good the bread would taste, how vindicated He’d be when the angels caught Him or how nice it would be to not be tortured and crucified. Instead, He rejected the temptations outright. We should do the same.
Finally, just as empty as the temptations were for Him, they are for you. We all can recall a time that we were tempted to do something wrong and were filled with excitement. Then, when we committed the sin and got on the other side, there was only sadness. If you’re like me and have had this experience more than once, you know it’ll always be like this. Like the mean words you always wanted to use to tell off your boss, coworker, or classmate, you always end up feeling guilty. Temptation is the illusion of something great wrapped around something lame. You know it’s going to be lame, so don’t bother with it. Plus, the time you spent distracted by sin is time that you can’t use to do something amazing with your life.
When faced with temptation, especially temptation around the weakest parts of your humanity, take courage. If Jesus was tempted, then you are in good company. Stay in that good company by resisting and overcoming.
When is it Enough?
The lives of the saints are a great mystery to us. How is it that ordinary men and women, both lay and religious, can slip the surly bonds of sin and fall in love with Jesus so deeply that they give up their selfish nature, pick up their cross, and follow Him?
Sure, we hear all the time that we should pick up our cross, but regard it as little more than a turn of phrase. “It’s the ideal, sure, but I’ll never do that. No one does.” “It’s a high standard that I just can’t reach because I’m too lost, hurt, and broken.” “I’ll worry about getting into Heaven when I’m older.” “I’m aiming for purgatory, it’s much more realistic for my situation in life.”
These are the lines we feed ourselves. Small rationalizations for our greed, lust, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. We accuse God of being disingenuous. He promised to give us all of the grace and mercy that we need to make it through this life and stay faithful to Him, but we refuse. We prefer our sin to the love of God.
The thing is, there’s no saint without a sinner. There’s no Heaven without trial. There’s no life without suffering, temptation, and the hurts of our humanity. There’s no saint who doesn’t know the guilt and shame of serious sin. There’s no saint who hasn’t silently struggled with their greatest character flaw. There’s no saint who doesn’t know what it feels like to lose out to temptation or to willingly give in to it.
The difference between a saint and you? They knew when to say, “Enough!”
We all share in a silent struggle. We have that one sin, that habitual sin that we just can’t seem to shake. It’s embarrassing, it’s shameful, and it’s painful to admit. The only time we talk about it openly is in the Confessional where we’re guaranteed complete privacy and anonymity. We want to break free, but we’re unwilling to expose ourselves to anyone. Thus we silently struggle, all on our own.
We’ve tried to break the habit 10 times or 100 times. Yet, we always find ourselves back at the beginning. Maybe it’s out of habit. Maybe it’s out of choice.
“Enough!”
Life, though difficult, was never designed to have you enslaved to sin, a prisoner in your own body. We are to be tested, certainly, but never so much that we’re overcome. It’s our choice to be overcome, our choice to give in, and thus our punishment to endure. We feel powerless in the moment, but feelings and emotions can be wrong. We have the power to stand up and stop. We have the power to end this silent struggle. We have the Sacrament of Confession and a limitless God full of love, mercy, and compassion. We have His mother and ours, the mediatrix of grace.
So what’s stopping you? What’s stopping you from declaring today that enough is enough. You’ve sinned, you’ve reconciled, you’ve sinned again. Why not break it once and for all? It will be hard, oh yes. Temptation will flare up because temptation hates resistance. Certainly another sin will take it’s place as your primary weakness. You’ve tried and failed before. But why should the past stop you from being a better person starting right now?
Today isn’t about yesterday. Today is about today! Change is hard, but you love a challenge. Temptation will give you a run for your money, but you love a good fight. Another sin will take up residence at the top of your list, but it’s lesser to your current one. And besides, you’re going to knock it out next. You’ve tried and failed before, but so did St. Peter. And St. Paul. And St. Thomas More. And St. Theresa of Avalia. And St. Josemaria Escriva. And St. Juan Diego. And St. Thomas Aquinas. And St. Augustine. And St. Pio. And St. John Paul II.
You make the difference. Be courageous. Choose the difficult. Choose freedom.
Read God’s Book
Last Fall, Alison, Benedict, and I traveled to my cousin’s wedding. While there, I saw one of those ubiquitous Catholic media CD displays in the back of the Church. A talk by Matthew Kelly caught my eye, so I picked up a copy knowing how much my sister enjoys his work. Alison and I listened on the drive home and something really stood out to me as Matthew was talking about what he thought our particular judgement would be like. He mused that God would ask us, “Did you read My book?”
As a writer, I kind of chuckled at the idea of that question. It’s certainly one that I ask people from time to time and often the answer is no. That’s to be expected for a new author who’s been in print for less than 12 months, but an answer of “no” is somewhat less acceptable to the Author of the best selling book of all time.
As I’ve slowly weaved the practice of spending 10 minutes a day reading the Bible into my morning prayer time, I’ve also done something that the college version of me would stringently object to as a waste of time; I’ve been reading the footnotes.
Reading the Bible today without making use of the footnotes would be like taking a road trip and not looking out the window. You’ll make it to the destination but you’ll have missed out on the richness of the context, the exciting details in the periphery, and the joy of the experience. It’s one of the reasons that I’ve enjoyed reading Fr. Jim Martin’s book, “Jesus: A Pilgrimage” this Lent. Fr. Martin takes the stories of Jesus’ life and gives the reader the perspective of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and his own personal experiences of God.
The Bible is a diverse collection of stories from a time and place that we have little historical experience of. I have never been to the Holy Land, I’m not Jewish, and I know almost nothing of Middle Eastern culture. In its 73 books, there’s a great variety of stories, truths and characters. The entire Old Testament is the written history of the Jewish people. The New Testament is the history of the foundation and propagation of the Christian faith. To really understand the richness of the content, you have to read the footnotes.
Most of the references and phrases used in the Bible are no longer used in common vernacular. Sometimes meaning is lost in translation. Often locations are referenced that are no longer known by those particular names. In instances such as these, happening almost every verse, the footnotes can unlock greater meaning. For example, did you know that Gehenna was a place in Jerusalem that was essentially a town dump where people burned their trash? If you simply read the Gospels without the footnotes, you might just think it was a Hebrew turn of phrase for hell. Instead, it’s a reference to an actual place that, frankly, everyone agreed was a true hell hole.
Reading the Bible is about more than just learning the history of the Jewish people or our own Christian heritage. We believe that the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, meaning that every line, story, phrase, character, and word is important for some particular reason. This is a spiritual experience and it’s one that will grow you intellectually and form you as a person. As you read, some passages will really jump out at you. They just might be the right message for you at the right time. You’ll be moved by someone’s deep faith, see yourself in a struggling character, or better understand the life that Jesus asks you to live.
Consider spending a few minutes a day reading God’s book. Start with just one book of the Bible and take 10 minutes a day to read, digest, and reflect. Not only will you find what you need to find and hear what you need to hear, you’ll be able to tell the omniscient and omnipotent creator of the universe that you read His book.
Idle Hands
I recently watched an interview with a Benedictine monk done by a local TV station out West. They were profiling this monk and his jam-making business that he’d started on the monastery grounds. The reporter walked us through the monk’s day, starting with prayers and then going immediately out into the fields to begin working. One of the lines from the story was the monk saying, “Idle hands are the Devil’s tools.”
This is a common phrase, but hearing it from a monk was particularly impactful. We tend to idealize members of the clergy and think of them as being above temptation and reproach when, in fact, they are human just as we are. We know that priests and religious spend a significant amount of time in prayer, so when a monk tells us that he works so as to avoid temptation, it should speak volumes to us.
There’s plenty of work to be done in our daily lives and there’s also plenty of opportunities for idle time. The best way to beat temptation is to avoid idle time through good scheduling.
Temptation strikes us all. Priests, nuns, sisters, brothers, married and single people alike. All of us face temptation and often the same ones. Temptation goes after the weakness of humanity and the tendency that we all have to be selfish. Sin, like any other activity, has a time requirement. When you’ve got plenty of good to do, there’s simply less time to do evil. There’s less time to stew about something your wife did, there’s less time to surf Facebook and gossip, and there’s less time to gorge yourself on food. We’re weakest when we’re rudderless. By implementing a solid time management system, you can deprive sin of time and choke it out.
Beyond keeping a calendar or a running to do list, it’s important to set your own boundaries. I’ve written numerous times about being self-aware in the sin department and avoiding triggers to your most commonly committed sins. Setting boundaries can help you steer clear of those triggers and thus keep you happier and sin-free. Laziness is its own form of evil. It’s ok to enjoy a slow pace, but it’s also important to keep it in check. Boundaries created by time can help regulate your life so that you’ll have plenty of time to take it easy while not, at the same time, falling into sin.
Time management has everything to do with what you do during your waking hours; it’s not only about boosting productivity at work. Rather, it’s about the sum total of how you spend your days. Incorporating hobbies, and keeping a few on standby, will help you make decisions during lulls in your day. You certainly have more to do than there are hours in the day and having a standby list can help you make better decisions about how to use unexpected free time. You could play with your kids, work on the car, update your home inventory, or even update the value of your stamp collection. Having hobbies on standby will help you make better decisions in the moment.
There could be any number of reasons, but we all commit sin because we think that we’ll benefit from it in some way. Once we commit the sin, we usually feel guilt and shame. Initially believing that a particular sinful action will benefit us is what keeps us in the habit of sin. We hold to a mistaken belief that if we give up sin we’re somehow giving up something good or fun. Contrary to this line of thinking, it’s only when we give up our sin that we can be truly free. It’s only when we give up our sin that we’re happy. It’s only when we give up our sin that we’re able to enjoy all of the good that life has to offer. Breaking the habit is hard, but waiting on the other side is a peace and happiness that we haven’t known for a while, maybe even years.
Idle hands are the Devil’s tools. Don’t be a tool.
Daily Prayer List
We all have many things in our lives that we like to pray for. A list of intentions floats around in each of our minds and it changes constantly. New intentions are added, fulfilled intentions are subtracted, and all along the way, we’re hopefully putting our trust in God and not in ourselves. This is very much a living list and it reflects our most closely held relationships and needs.
Each morning, when I’m disciplined enough to rise at 5am, I start my day with prayer. I roll out of bed, go downstairs and get the coffee brewing. While it brews, I check in with Twitter and Instagram to see what I missed overnight. When the coffee is hot and ready, I meander into our family room where I take a seat at our breakfast nook. I open my prayer with the sign of the cross and then I form my list of intentions for the day. The first cogent thoughts of mine each day are the intentions that are on my heart.
Our daily intentions should be ever on our mind and being constantly lifted up in prayer. Having a list can be helpful in that it keeps you very aware of those for whom you need to pray and for those things that you need help with. By having a list that you revisit daily, you can remain centered and ensure that those for whom you promised to pray get prayed for!
Pray for your intentions at the beginning of the day and the end of the day. Prayer should be conversational and it should be honest. You don’t have to put on a front with God, you can simply express how you truly feel. Along with bookending your day with prayer, offer up small sacrifices during the day. When challenges arise or difficult situations, you don’t have to pause to consider for whom or for what to offer your sacrifice. Your list is ready to go and ready to be prayed for.
Don’t forget to be thankful. Most of us screw this up. Like a young child on Christmas morning, we open the present that we really wanted and get completely consumed in the celebration, forgetting to express thanks to the person who gave it to us. Prayers will be answered, many in a very big and impactful way. Remember to be thankful, even if an intention isn’t answered, before you remove it from your list. Sometimes we ask for things that, unbeknownst to us, would be quite harmful in our lives. That means that when a prayer isn’t answered, it too is cause for giving thanks. You may not have gotten the job that you wanted, but you couldn’t see how it would consume you and push your marriage to the brink of collapse.
By maintaining a daily prayer list, even if only in your mind, you can more consistently pray for the intentions in your life. Adding and subtracting as needed will ensure that what needs to be prayed for gets prayed for. Above all else, you’ll have a starting point for a habit of regular prayer, an essential element in the life of any saint!
Support Our Priests
Growing up, priests were a constant presence in my house. My parents were very diligent in cultivating relationships with the priests at our parish, even as we moved across the country and around the world. Perhaps more notably, they made sure to continue these relationships, even when a particular priest was reassigned or we moved. I think that having the opportunity to get to know our priests on a more personal level, besides just seeing them at Mass, was instrumental in me discerning a possible vocation to the priestly life. Knowing them, I was able to better see myself being one of them.
Our parish priests are the leaders of our communities and we should be taking care of them by opening our hearts and homes to them. It’s our duty, as the faithful, to welcome them into our family and to share the joys of life with them.
The life of a priest, like the life of any person, can be difficult and lonely at times. While they may have joined the diocese that they grew up in, they may still not have as much time as they’d like to spend with their own families. Priests should be considered members of our families. They are to care for our spiritual health and we are to tend to their material needs. One of the ways to integrate your parish priests into the life of your family is to do as my parents did, and invite them to participate in your family’s life. Certainly they won’t be able to all the time, but when they do, it can be a very refreshing experience for them. They’ll be able to get out of the rectory and do something relaxing. They won’t have to run a meeting, manage conflict, or hear a litany of complaints. Instead, they’ll get to share in the beauty of family life. Have them over to dinner often and invite them to your family’s celebrations.
Another great way to support our priests is to observe their special days. Find out when his birthday is and give him a thoughtful present. Celebrate his ordination anniversary in some special way. Find out the other days that are important to him, perhaps a nice note or card on the anniversary of his parent’s death.
Most importantly, continue to build the relationship beyond assignments. From time to time, the Bishop will reassign priests for various reasons, based on the needs of the community. When you build a relationship, especially in modern times, it’s natural to just let it fizzle when someone moves away. Certainly he’ll have new responsibilities and new families to mingle with. I’d encourage you to stay in touch. Be a constant friend and support network for him. He may face an issue that he doesn’t feel comfortable discussing with his parish, or he may be sent to a parish that isn’t able to support their own basic needs and you may be able to help. Preserve the familial bond that has been formed between him and your family.
I think the most important part of this whole idea of supporting our priests comes back to my own experience. You’re teaching your children something important. First, you’re fostering in their minds that they might be called to the priestly or religious life. Second, you’re modeling for your children how the faithful is called to care for those among us who have laid down their lives in sacrifice for us as priests.
Sublime Forgivness
The struggle with the Sacrament of Confession is a lifelong one for Catholics. Our struggle is a deeply human one in that the Sacrament requires us to look at our lives and voice our failings. We’re not perfect people, and Confession is a stark reminder of that. We love the feeling of cleanliness after Confession, but we struggle with comprehending God’s great mercy.
Recently I’ve been reading books about World War II. I love history and learning about so many of the characters that helped shape world events. Some of the stories are so sensational that it’s hard to believe that they can be real. One of those characters is Rudolf Hoss. Rudolf was the commandant of Auschwitz for many years during World War II. Under his direction, somewhere between 1.5 and 3 million people lost their lives, whether by outright murder, death by starvation, torture, disease, or cruel medical experimentation.
I fail to come up with words strong enough to express how reprehensible Rudolf’s actions were. He’s considered by many to be the greatest criminal to have ever lived. The compete disregard for human life is shocking, even today, 70 years later. The magnitude is unimaginable. 3 million lives, snuffed out on his orders.
By all accounts, most people would consider him to be eternally damned. Of course, that’s not our place to judge and we’ll never know. You’d think that after the end World War II, his story would be over. It’s precisely then that it starts to get interesting. After some time on the run, Rudolf was caught and convicted of crimes against humanity, and sentenced to execution by hanging. The authorities built a gallows on the spot in Auschwitz where the camp Gestapo interrogated and tortured inmates. He was executed in 1947. The part of the story that we don’t often hear about was that Rudolf was Catholic. Certainly his actions as commandant were in direct opposition to everything that the Church stands for and teaches. Indeed, there’s a great body of documentation showing the great lengths that the Church went to in order to save Jews and other persecuted people during the war. Yet, a few days before his execution, Rudolf received the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
We’ll never know the disposition of his heart, how contrite he was, or what he even said. What we do know, based on Church teaching, is that God will forgive any sin for which we are truly sorry, if we bring it to Him in the Sacrament with a contrite heart. What that means is that Rudolf, the greatest criminal of all time, a man who ruthlessly and actively allowed 3 million souls to perish who were under his authority, if he asked God for forgiveness, was granted it.
Amazing.
The lesson here is this: God’s mercy, through the Sacrament, can forgive any sin.
Fear plays a role in how we approach, or don’t approach, Confession. We feel a great sense of shame as we commit the same sins day after day, week after week. That shame drives us to fear naming our sins to a priest who may know us or recognize our voice. This is, of course, unfounded. The priest may never reveal what he hears under the seal of the Sacrament, and further, he’s undoubtedly heard much worse. Yet, even with this knowledge, shame still creeps in. This is, no doubt, the work of Satan. The fact remains that a faithful Catholic is devastating to his plans of destruction. That means that the more faithful and fervent you are, the greater the threat you become. It also means that if you’re tempted more frequently, you just may be living the Christian life right.
We’re all repeat offenders, even the priest. While he may not struggle with the same sin that you are, he knows all too well that the struggle is real. We all resolve to do better and we all relapse. Repeated relapses led us to believe that we’re unworthy of forgiveness or that there’s no point of going to Confession because we’re just going to sin again. This logic is completely backwards. It’s when the swimmer gives up that he’s overwhelmed by the water and not a moment before. Confession is our chance to persevere and overcome.
In the Sacrament of Confession, we’re confronted with more than just our past failings; we come face to face with the overwhelming majesty of God. Who is this that can forgive our numerous and repeated offenses against Him? Who can have an inexhaustible supply of mercy, love, and forgiveness? With the right intent, we’re able to receive true forgiveness. Aside from being able to physically receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus, as He promised, through the Eucharist that He established, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the greatest benefit of being a Catholic.
We all face fear and shame when we reflect upon our lives and see how far we’ve fallen short of the bar we set for ourselves. Through grace and the Sacramental life of the Church, we’re able to be healed, reconciled, and dusted off, prepared to rise again tomorrow, refreshed and joyful, ready to praise Him throughout another day.
How to Grow this Lent
Unbelievably, today is Ash Wednesday. In just a few hours, the hunger pangs will start to set in as we observe the first of two fasting days this year. Masses today will undoubtedly be crowed by the faithful looking to mark the beginning of this penitential and fruitful season.
Over the past few weeks, you may have noticed that many fast food chains have started to market heavily their fish options. I think it’s pretty funny that they cater to us every time this year. It also shows the remarkable market strength Christians have when we band together.
The question on everyone’s mind, including mine, is how can we grow this Lent? Over the past two weeks, I’ve been promoting my most recent book, Grant Us Peace, as one possible aid in your Lenten journey. Although it is a 21 day retreat, as opposed to the full 40 days of Lent, I wrote it specifically for times like these. It seems that around Ash Wednesday each year, many Catholics recognize how far they are from the spiritual life that they wish they had and are eager to hit the restart button. If that sounds like you, “Grant Us Peace” is the right book for you now.
What’s perhaps even better than the newness that Lent brings is how excited the clergy gets. It’s wonderful when priests dramatically increase the frequency and prevalence of liturgies and devotionals. Stations of the Cross are offered weekly, a few extra daily Masses are added to the schedule, some very early in the morning and others at night. This is really great because it caters to members of the parish who wish they could participate more actively in the daily life of the Church, but their work schedule precludes them from doing so. Your parish might even have a speaker series or a mission happen during Lent and, of course, there will be a penance service. The penance service is awesome because you really feel comfortable confessing your worst sins to a priest that you’ll likely never see again.
As we start this 40 day journey, I want you to take a good look at the full schedule at your parish and find some ways to more actively participate with you and your family, especially in the Easter Triduum. These liturgies are sublime and, when you really get into them, are not at all boring or old fashioned. They are beautiful expressions of faith that allow us to better understand how sin effects the entire Church.
This Lent, find ways at home to enrich your family’s spiritual life. Be reflective, be resolute, and immerse yourself in this season. Read the Sunday readings together on Saturday, pray a rosary together, or even just start praying together in the evening. Do something and make it a priority.
Lent is a beautiful opportunity for a grand spiritual restart. Don’t wait until Holy Week to start yours.