There’s a famous church in Rome with a crypt containing bones of thousands of friars; a plaque is displayed with the words, “What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.” It’s a fitting reminder to me to get right with God, myself, and my fellow man, while i still have time to do. That’s what Lent encourages with the threefold discipline of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Yesterday was Fat Tuesday but today is Ash Wednesday, a fresh new opportunity to strive for wholeness.

In praying I receive the graces of repentance for understanding what I am before God; of meditation to learn Christ (what I should become); and for the strength to see what to do and to do it. In fasting, I die to my own will and selfish desires to be freed to do what he wants. By alsgiving I actively think of others more and myself less. Lenten practice involves involves dying to self in order to live more fully; it’s dying with Christ in order to rise with him. This is, in a nutshell, the plan for Lent

(Don’t be surprised to see a redesign and restructure of this blog, and frequent posts this Lent.)