Septuagesima Sunday: Time to Start Thinking and Planning My Lent!

We all want to make a good Lent, right? It's coming in only a few weeks, so now is the time to begin planning how we will make the best of it. How will we apply prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in our daily lives?

My husband and I have decided to study Bishop Schneider's compendium of the faith, Credo, as our prayer and study. I recently ordered both the books and the study guides. We've decided to begin today and make part of our observance of Sunday, reading and studying the faith so we can share it more effectively.

Sunday is an important prayer day. Larry and I pray five rosaries on Sunday, one for each of our five children and their families. Since we live 35 minutes from church we pray two on the way to church, the community rosary with the congregation, one on the way home, and one in the evening. It's become a joyful time that, perhaps sounds burdensome, but isn't at all. It's become a blessed, peaceful, joyful respite from the trials of our crazy world.

I'm not very good at fasting, but I think my major fast will be giving up games. I spend too much time playing Words with Friends. My "friends" are the computer challengers and sometimes I think they cheat. How many times can they give me a rack of all one point vowels? Dropping the games will give me more time to pray, study, and read good books from my mountains of stacks. 

We support a lot of charities, so how should we approach almsgiving? I need to give more thought to that. How can we make our giving more meaningful and personal? I'll spend these pre-Lenten preparation weeks thinking about that.

Let's not wait until Ash Wednesday to think about our Lenten preparation. Preparation now will help us make the best Lent we've ever experienced. Then Easter Sunday will bless us more than it ever has before. What a joy that will be!