A Two-Part Plan for Lent pt. 2
one
We need a two-part plan for Lent: Human and Divine. Yesterday we focused on the human and to today the divine or the spiritual.
Our Spiritual plan for Lent needs the following ingredients: Daily Meditation, examination of Conscience, Confession, Daily Mass and helping others grow spiritually.
Lent is about conversion and growth. The infallible means to growth in friendship with Jesus and conversion from vice to virtue is Daily Meditation. The Catechism suggests two ways to do daily meditation through Lectio Divina, that is, to prayerfully read the Bible or through the Rosary.
Either way, in meditation we do three things:
A. We listen to God by reading or recalling His Word in Scripture, Tradition and the teaching of the Church. This is the way God speaks to us.
B. Then we reflect or think about what God has said and done to understand it, to love God for it and to form firm convictions.
C. We form a resolution to put into practice what God has said to us that day.
If we do this every day we will convert from vice to virtue and grow. If we do not do this – we will not convert and grow.
two
What most prevents us from a deeper conversion is a lack of awareness, a lack of reflection upon our lives.
We don’t learn by experience. Rather we learn by reflecting on our experiences.
We would more deeply convert and have a successful Lent if we did a brief examination of conscience each day. It only takes a couple of minutes. It can be done at the end of the day or the beginning of the next day.
Try this:
Look back over the last 24 hours on your thoughts, words and actions. Identify where you did what was wrong or failed to do what was right.
Then ask – why did I do that? What were the feelings or disordered desires that prompted you to fall?
When you can identify those, you are getting to the roots of the problem.
Finish by making a concrete game plan to act differently.
You could incorporate this into your daily resolution from meditation.
three
If you do a daily examination of conscience you will quickly see the need for confession.
So go at least once a month.
In her Apparitions Mary has said: Monthly Confessions will be a remedy for the church in the west… whole sections of the Church could be cured if the believers would go to Confession once a month.
On February 28th I reminded you that Mary asked us to live out the 5 first Saturdays devotion as a vital means to avert a third world war.
First Saturdays includes confession. So if we do what our Mamma is telling us we will grow spiritually and we can change world events for the good.
four
Consider going to Daily Mass this Lent.
One extra day or every day.
Our Lady has said: “May the Mass, the most exalted and most powerful act of your prayer, be the center of your spiritual life.”
i. Mass is the greatest way to thank God for all the goodness in your life.
ii. Praying for your family and friends at Mass is the most powerful thing you can do for them.
iii. Mass purifies you of daily sins and strengthens you against grave sin.
iv. Mass makes the saving work of Jesus continue in you because I’m sure you still need it.
v. If all that was not enough – In Mass we receive God. What more do you want?
five
Alone you cannot grow spiritually. We need others and they need us.
We all need a small group of family and friends with whom we commit to share life regularly, ideally once a week. And when we gather, invite them to pray the Rosary and then ask them what struck them during the Rosary.
Build your team and commit to meet regularly.
As I said yesterday, let’s reclaim Sunday as the day for relationship with God and others.
Finally – a special Lenten Challenge.
We all have family and friends for whom a full Rosary is too big of a leap. Instead, invite them to pray one-decade a day.
Each day we create a one minute meditation with the one-decade of the Rosary.
If you invite four others, that makes five. Joined together you pray one Rosary every day.