Lent: What's Working and What Isn't

What's Working:

With the girls:

Over breakfast, I read reflections, quotes, and prayers from Bringing Lent Home with St. Therese of Lisieux: Prayers, Reflections, and Activities for Families to Betsy and Ramona. This lovely book (part of a series by Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle) has also led us to more extended discussions about St. Therese, her Story of a Soul, and the sharing of insights I gained from a recent reading of Patrick Ahern's Three Gifts of St. Therese. 

I am also (again) using Sarah Reinhard's Welcome Risen Jesus: Lent and Easter Reflections for Families as part of our breakfast reading. The book's cover might lead you to think this one is for very young children, but (while it works on that level) it also works for entire families. Sharing the quick readings from this little book is a great way to bring Scripture into our morning.

I'm enjoying sharing these books daily with Betsy and Ramona, and then including the weekend readings at a family dinner on Sunday -- a nice way to bring Atticus and Anne into what we're doing.

I'm having Betsy read Mark Shea's By What Authority?: An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition and for our holy hour, she often turns to Youcat: Youth Prayer Book, which she is liking a lot.

We are also keeping up with Operation Rice Bowl, trying recipes, and making donations based on their calendar, stories, and ideas.

For me: My Lenten Reading 

Interior Freedom by Jacques Philippe: So far, this is ranking with one of my favorite spiritual classics, Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, which I return to again and again. Both books put forth a very simple truth: God is all.

For Atticus and me: fasting from foods: 

Giving up meat is surprisingly easy. Not surprisingly, I guess, when one considers that we didn't eat much red meat anyway but we do eat a lot of chicken. That's been quite easy to cut out or work around. My daughters are carnivores, though, and they still want hunks of flesh on the table, so I sometimes have to make different versions of our meals, or just add meat on the side of a dish for them to dig into.

But because it has felt so easy for us, Atticus and I decided to add another penance, so this falls more under the "tweaking" category than the "not working" category.

What Isn't Working: 

This is more of a sad realization, one I've known for the last couple of years, but hate to admit:

It's time for me to admit that Ramona isn't little anymore. Oh, sure, she insisted that we make the Lamb of God calendar again this year, the lamb that I've been making for, oh, a million years. (And I was really happy that she insisted.) She said it wouldn't be Lent without it. And sure, she insisted that it also wouldn't be Lent without the sacrifice jar, so we've got one of those out, too. But in the reality of day-to-day, those are activities that appeal to the very young child, the one who needs to see the days ticked off, and watch the pile of beans that will become sweet candy growing. Ramona (and the rest of us) forget about the calendar and the sacrifice jar.

And so the lamb, the jar of beans ... they are visible signs to me, Lenten signs, that everything changes and things fall away. Lent is a time in which I always realize (for the millionths time) that we  keep trudging on through life trying to hold on to the best of what we've found, and God keeps wrenching things away from us, teaching us -- through little things like cotton ball lambs and kidney beans -- how to let go, and how to love Him more.

So, really, I guess this stuff that's outwardly "no longer working" this Lent is working. Message received.

But we'll always make our Lamb of God calendar. It just wouldn't be Lent without it.

It's the Third Sunday of Lent: Do You Know Where Your Penance Is?

Time for a little self-assessment.

We're almost halfway through Lent. How's it going? Am I holding up my end of the sacrifice bargain?

Of course, the sacrifice thing isn't really a bargaining situation. It's not as if I say, "Okay, God, I'm going to give up my favorite stuff and in return You'll give me eternal salvation. Sound like a deal? Okay...Go!"

Yeah, the eternal salvation thing doesn't really work like that.

But I do go into Lent feeling both a responsibility and a hunger to:

• Listen to the wake-up call. (There's always a wake-up call.)
• Be strengthened in the ability to resist temptations in small things (bacon's good for that) so as to grow in the ability to resist in the large things. 
• Grow closer to Christ. (Because that's what it's all about for me.) 

So, about halfway into the desert, I like to check up on myself and my progress (or lack thereof) in those areas.

Am I grumbling, like the people in today's Mass reading:

In those days, in their thirst for water,
the people grumbled against Moses,
saying, “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt? Was it just to have us die here of thirst
with our children and our livestock?”

Wow, God's people sure know how to pitch a good fit.

Sometimes I know how to pitch a good fit, too. I've had Lenten seasons wherein I can not stop grumbling to God, "Why did You let me choose this sacrifice? Was it just to have me die here in the midwest in abject shame and misery?"

At those times, I'm sure God wants to respond to me in the same way Moses did:

“What shall I do with this people?" 

Scripture doesn't record it, but I'm pretty sure there was an interrobang at the end of that question. "Really, Lord?!"

Poor Moses. He had an ungrateful lot to deal with. I know how it feels to be part of the ungrateful lot.

But this is not one of those grumbling years for me. This is one of those years when some sacrifices almost seem to be coming too easily. One of the things Atticus and I gave up this year was meat (except on some Sundays.) And it hasn't been that hard, really. I'm a pretty big vegetable devotee as it is, and this hasn't been that big a stretch. So I'm feeling a tug to tighten the sacrifice belt, so to speak.

It's all good.

I love and hate Lent, because it's beautiful and hard.

I'm reading Interior Freedom by Jacques Philippe, and I'll close with a quote from St. Faustina that he includes in the book:

Love is a mystery that transforms everything it touches 

into beautiful things that are pleasing to God. 

The love of God sets the soul free. 

Who Needs Bacon, Anyway?

So, Atticus and I gave up meat for Lent. Last night I made waffles and bacon for the girls, and since bacon can have a siren effect on me, I needed something more tempting than waffles to get me through. So, I made these Hot and Cold Sesame Noodles.

I first got this recipe from my friend Bridget and then found Rachael Ray's version online when I wanted to send the recipe to my sister. I always tweak according to what I have in the house -- I never have sesame seeds, use whatever soy sauce I have, add less than two tablespoons of hot sauce (I just throw in a few shakes so it's a little different every time), never have bean sprouts, sometimes have scallions, sometimes not, sometimes throw some peanuts or cashews on top. You can also throw chicken into it if you want to carnivore-it-up.

It has a vegetarian version of the siren effect on me. It is delicious. I don't want to stop eating it. As a matter of fact, there's nothing penitential about shoveling this dish into my mouth, so I may have to go back to grilled cheese or something.

But I didn't miss the bacon.

A Fat Tuesday Post: Five Things I Love About God

This post was originally a response to a Lenten meme a few years ago, but it seems a fitting way to say farewell to Ordinary Time for awhile.


Five Reasons I Love Jesus:

1. 
He loved me when I didn't even know He existed; He loved me when I knew He existed but I ridiculed Him; He loved me when I broke down, sobbed, asked Him to forgive me my countless sins and transgressions. He loves me now as I stumble through my life as a Christian. I love Him because He first loved me.

2.
a.) He sacrificed His Body and His Precious Blood in order to save me. And He repeatedly offers me His Body and Blood, and saves me again and again, every time I assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

b.) Sacraments. They are like Divine Magic, minus the sleight of hand, plus the ooohs and aaahs. They stagger me. They are weird and brilliant.

3.
He makes all things new.

4. 
He laughed. He wept. He got frustrated. He celebrated. He grieved. He knows all things. He knows why I laugh, why I weep, why I get frustrated, why I celebrate, why I grieve.

5.
Confession! It's the best. Even when it feels like the worst. The worst becomes the best. (I told you He makes all things new.)

6.
Did I mention that He first loved me?

7. 
He forgives me for cheating at/ignoring the rules about memes and about how many things one should list.

Dear Lent,

Hey, old friend! It's been awhile. Almost a year. How are you? I'm looking forward to seeing you next week when you arrive. I always love a good trek in the desert.

Funny thing about you, though -- you always kind of sneak up on me. Well, not exactly ... I always feel as if you sneak up on me, but the truth is, you are stirring in little corners of my mind for days and weeks before you arrive. I may tell everyone, "I have no idea what I'm doing for Lent this year - I haven't thought about it," but in truth, the thoughts are there, somewhere. A bit buried, a bit hidden, even from myself. They are mostly prayers -- sometimes spoken, sometimes silent -- for guidance about what I need to do. (What to give up? What new habit to establish? How to deepen my prayer life? Time to examine the maxim I say I want to live by, but so often fail at: "Lord, let me serve without counting the cost.")

So, I've got five days before you show up on my doorstep, Lent. Are you going to come bearing gifts? Surprises? You're good that way. I never know what to expect from you. Sometimes, I must admit, you exasperate me, especially when I've planned for us to have a particular kind of get-together, and then you turn the tables on me and bring up all sorts of stuff I hadn't planned to deal with during your visit. You know how to push my buttons. But that's okay. We're good enough friends that we can weather those storms. And, come to think of it, I always come away from your button-pushing feeling stronger. And better. Recharged. Huh. It's almost as if you knew it would happen that way. Maybe you aren't trying to be annoying.

Oh, Lent. You always give me something to think about. Can't wait to see you.

Love,
Karen

~~~~~~~~~~

If you've been writing letters to Lent lately, too, or if you're just looking for ideas about the season, you can find lots of them in this series of posts: A Meaningful Lent: The Monstrously Long Post.