Duc in Altum

For Roman Catholics, this is the first Sunday in Lent. Since I was not able to post in time for the beginning of Lent last week on Ash Wednesday, I thought I would use this liturgical day to post on the beginning of the season of Lent.

The traditional means of keeping the season is to increase one's efforts in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Because I am a convert to Catholicism, I did grow up with the concept of giving something up for Lent in order to learn the concept of fasting. Instead, after I heard it several years ago, I have tried to practice the idea of fasting from sin. To that end I have established two fasts. One is a personal sin to overcome, and the other is the more traditional food item--chocolate. I realized a while ago that I actually consume quite a bit of chocolate; it should be a great thing to not have any in order to discipline my appetite.

Prayer comes in to play because in order to overcome sin, I must pray to obtain the grace to have a will that is able to choose good over evil. In addition, I must pray to cooperate with the grace that God gives me.

I do not have a plan for increased almsgiving. However, after reading this, I think that I not only need to come up with a plan, but I need to decide to put it in to action through consistent tithing. And that means tithing my time, as well as my money.