As I walked from the campus library to my dorm with my roommate, we discussed our plans for the weekend. It was a temperate December day in Southwest Florida at Ave Maria University. “Don’t forget!...
Expectant waiting. This is a notion– when considered through the lens of modernity– that seems like a foreign concept from the days of yore. The world is available at the slight extension of the...
The following is an excerpt from 12 Rules For Manliness | Where Have All the Cowboys Gone Be Dangerous – Make a Stand “Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.” 1 Cor 16:13 “
What is Lent? -According to the USCCB
Lent is a 40 day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday. It's a period of preparation to celebrate the Lord's Resurrection at Easter. During Lent, we seek the Lord in prayer by reading Sacred Scripture; we serve by giving alms; and we practice self-control through fasting. We are called not only to abstain from luxuries during Lent, but to a true inner conversion of heart as we seek to follow Christ's will more faithfully. We recall the waters of baptism in which we were also baptized into Christ's death, died to sin and evil, and began new life in Christ.
Many know of the tradition of abstaining from meat on Fridays during Lent, but we are also called to practice self-discipline and fast in other ways throughout the season. Contemplate the meaning and origins of the Lenten fasting tradition in this reflection. In addition, the giving of alms is one way to share God's gifts—not only through the distribution of money, but through the sharing of our time and talents. As St. John Chrysostom reminds us: "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2446).
In Lent, the baptized are called to renew their baptismal commitment as others prepare to be baptized through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, a period of learning and discernment for individuals who have declared their desire to become Catholics.