Hi Everyone,
It is Ash Wednesday today and that means the starting of Lent.
I'm not too familiar with the holiday but I do know that is customary to give something up for God. And this thing that we give up should be a sacrifice to God because it is something that distracts us from God on a daily basis.
And because of this, I encourage you to really take this up and be prayerful in that time that you would be doing that activity. To fill that activity with maybe prayer or reading the Bible.
Let's do this, I for one have opted out of video games. It's going to be hard....
Josh
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Ha, I was going to post something about Lent but Josh beat me to it.
ReplyDeleteI'm giving up Gchat, Facebook, and reading manga.
I also aim to be more focused and disciplined not only in my time with God but also in areas of life such as studying.
The main theme of Lent is sacrifice in preparation for the commemoration of Christ's death and resurrection.
I didn't even know about Lent until I went to college and I think we should sacrifice every day for God. But Lent is a good way to start.
The tradition of the Church for most of its history was to approach Easter with a period of (approximately) 40 days of preparation. This preparation including abstaining from various worldly distractions coupled with additional prayer. The abstention serves the dual purpose of removing obstacles we put between ourselves and God and showing us our own weaknesses (i.e. puts the "I just couldn't help it" moments in sharp relief), thus showing in a tangible way our need for salvation. It's a tragedy that the observation of Lent has greatly diminished in recent times.
ReplyDeleteOne key thing about abstention: hide the fact that you're doing it. Matthew 6:16-18 are the key verses in this matter.
A key thing about Lent is that in addition to forgoing some comfort/worldly-attachment we should strive more to live a God-pleasing life and love our neighbor. As St. John Chrysostom put it: "what does it profit if we abstain from birds and fishes, and yet bite and devour our brethren?"
Josh said:
"And because of this, I encourage you to really take this up and be prayerful in that time that you would be doing that activity. To fill that activity with maybe prayer or reading the Bible."
This is absolutely spot-on. Whatever obstacles there are between us an God occupy space in our life. When those obstacles are removed there is a gap; a gap that needs to be filled. Thus, often people pray and/or read the Bible more during Lent (or some other spiritually profitable book--often the insights of others will shine a light into the darkened confusion of our minds).