Category: Behold Vancouver

Father Dave recounts how all three readings today feature people who made radical changes in their lives after hearing God’s call. He challenges us to boldly and loudly say yes to how God may be calling us today.

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Lent is almost over…. 40 days of fasting, prayer, and sacrifice have passed in the blink of an eye. How do you feel? Are you puffed up with pride or weighed down by discouragement?

Today Fr. Mark-Mary offers a final word of encouragement to lean into the mercy of Jesus however you feel as we enter into Holy Week.

During the season of Lent a few years ago, I decided that I would commit to a morning habit of not turning my phone on until after I have had my personal prayer time with Jesus. Part of my rule of life is to find a practical way to connect with Jesus first in the beginning of my day. I found this to be more challenging than I anticipated! Bombarded with constant texts, emails, messages, Instagram, and Facebook notifications, my phone controlled me more than I liked to admit. Plagued with a compulsion to scroll, I had become a slave to technology. Choosing not to reach for my phone to check messages first thing in the morning for forty days turned out to be an interior battle. I knew I couldn’t do this on my own, so I needed to ask for God’s grace everyday and I had to come up with a practical game plan. Each night, I put my phone on “airplane mode” and set my alarm for the time I would get up to pray in the morning. When I would wake up, I would deny myself the urge to turn airplane mode off to see who had messaged me. In order to stay focused, I had a routine: I would set a timer for how long I was going to pray, read the gospel readings of the day, read my devotional book (Jesus Calling by Sarah Young), and pull out my journal. I would reflect on what spoke to me from the readings, and re-read any parts that would resonate with me (Lectio Divina). Through my imagination, I would place myself in the gospel scene with Jesus (Ignatian Spirituality). I would then listen to hear what He had to say, and journal any insights down. After my timer had gone off, I would end with an Our Father. 

For me, I have come to understand a rule of life as a set of practices that I intentionally create or implement in order to preserve something precious. For example, I make it a practice to go to confession at least once a month, in order to cleanse my soul from my sins and failings. During this particular season of Lent in my life, I needed to take action against the vices of being distracted by my phone and neglecting my personal prayer time. I knew that if I made time for Jesus first, the fruits of the spirit – peace, love, hope, and joy – would be a natural result of this commitment.The blessings that came from consistently living out denying myself my phone first thing in the morning during Lent were absolutely astounding.

The Church encourages us to make sure our kids are “taught the true meaning of penance,” even though fasting rules don’t apply to them.

It’s Lent — time for fasting, for no meat Fridays, and for almsgiving. But do kids have to fast? Or abstain from meat? No! Canon law says that only those from ages 18 to 59 have to fast, while those 14 and older have to abstain from meat. However, at the end of the paragraph about fasting and abstinence in canon law, there is a note for parents I had never noticed before. Parents are supposed to ensure that their children are “taught the true meaning of penance” once they reach the age of reason, even though children are “not bound by the law of fasting and abstinence” (Canon Law 1252).

Why would kids need to know the true meaning of fasting and penance? Also, what is the true meaning of fasting and penance? My answer to both of these questions goes back to one evening at an Indian restaurant a few years ago. My family and I were deciding what to eat from the menu with my husband’s parents, and it was a Friday. We discussed which options did not have meat, and our Indian server overheard us.

“Oh, you don’t eat meat on Fridays then?” she asked.

 “No, we don’t,” we responded.

 She quickly replied, asking “Ah, you do it for Jesus?”

 “Yes, that’s right!” was our resounding reply.

That moment comes back to me every time I am having a hard time making a decision regarding fasting and abstinence, like when I am struggling to figure out what meatless meals we will eat this Friday. Why am I doing this thing, making this sacrifice? Is it because it is just an arbitrary rule that I have to follow if I call myself Catholic? No! It’s for Jesus! I’m doing this for Jesus — the God who loves me and died for me and who becomes present in the Eucharist just so He can be close to me. 

If we can teach our kids that Lent is a time to grow closer to Jesus, and one way we do that is by giving up meat or our normal meal schedule, I think we are well on our way to teaching them the true meaning of penance. And if they learn that lesson now, while they are small, then perhaps it will just be the normal fabric of life by the time they reach their teenage years, rather than a burdensome or arbitrary rule with no context.

Here are a few ideas on how to introduce penance and fasting to your children.

Today, Fr. Mark-Mary guides us through discernment for how to hear the Father’s voice more clearly this Lent through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Are you afraid to approach God?

Jesus says, “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them… But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” Matthew 6:5-6 

Fr. Mike reminds us that God sees us, notices us and cares for us. Don’t be afraid to approach the throne of grace.

“My God, my God why have you abandoned me?” Psalm 22:1 Are you praying everyday but still suffering? Are you doing all the right things but your heart is still broken?

Fr. Mike shares with us today that God doesn’t promise all our desires, but promises that He will be with us through our sufferings. He reminds us that we are never abandoned by Him.

You need to know yourself in order to find the best ways to live Lent. Take some time to consider who you are and what your relationships need.

It’s important to know yourself well when you decide how you will fast, pray, and give alms this Lent.

If you do, then maybe you can combine all three in ways that are tailor-made to improve the most important relationships of your life.

Let’s start with your relationship with God.

We all have a different problem here. 

Maybe you are overwhelmed. Are you exhausted by your many devotions? Maybe you do rosaries, chaplets, and novenas  — and rosary novenas and chaplet novenas —  along with daily Mass, feast day activities, daily podcasts, and parish events, and you’re drowning in it all.

Or maybe you are presumptuous. Maybe you do all of those things and you actually keep up with it all. Your inbox provides the novena for next week’s feast each morning, you are on the second half of a 54-day rosary novena, you get a chaplet in most afternoons at around 3, and you are going through Bible in a Year for the third time. Maybe you are pretty sure that even God is impressed with you.

Or maybe your spiritual life is on hold. Maybe you did many of these things for much of your life, but you are just really, really busy right now. You totally plan to pray again — when you have more time. Maybe in late spring?

Whether you are overwhelmed, presumptuous, or on hold —  you can do something about it this Lent. Give up worrying about anything but daily prayer, Sunday Mass, and regular confession — but put more into each of those. At your daily prayer, picture Jesus sitting across from you, lean forward, and say, “Can we just talk for a change?” He would love to hear from you.

Then comes your relationship with your spouse.

Again, let’s be clear where we are starting. 

Are you walking on eggshells with your spouse? Maybe you’re fine, totally fine, as long as you can steer the conversation away from two or three or, well, maybe 10, touchy topics that set you off. If you talk about any of those you get angry fights or silent funks. So you don’t talk about those. And you’re fine.

Are you being maternalistic or paternalistic with your spouse? Maybe your husband complains that you don’t let him do anything he likes and that you shut down every plan he tries to make — but of course you do because his priorities are all wrong. Or maybe your wife complains that you don’t listen to her — but you most certainly do listen, on the rare occasions she actually has something important to say.

Do your Lenten practices feel arbitrary? Do your penances seem ineffective? If you’re feeling this way, you might be wondering, “what do you want from me this Lent, God?” 

You might hear the answer as you receive cruciform ashes on your forehead this Ash Wednesday: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” 

Fr. Mark-Mary wants you to transform your Lent with one simple idea: repentance. There is a better way to do this, and it’s not complicated. We hope you have a blessed Lent this year!

©AscensionPresents

Lent is often a time when we are invited to pray the Stations of the Cross, a devotion that has multiple lessons we can learn about the spiritual life.

One of the most popular devotions during Lent is the Stations of the Cross. Parishes around the world will hold special times when the faithful can come to the Church and pray the Stations together.

It is a devotion that simply “makes sense” during Lent, as it is focused on the intense passion and death of Jesus Christ.

The Directory on popular piety and the liturgy explains that it is a “synthesis” of various Lenten devotions:

The Via Crucis is a synthesis of various devotions that have arisen since the high middle ages: the pilgrimage to the Holy Land during which the faithful devoutly visit the places associated with the Lord’s Passion; devotion to the three falls of Christ under the weight of the Cross; devotion to “the dolorous journey of Christ” which consisted in processing from one church to another in memory of Christ’s Passion; devotion to the stations of Christ, those places where Christ stopped on his journey to Calvary because obliged to do so by his executioners or exhausted by fatigue, or because moved by compassion to dialogue with those who were present at his Passion.

While it certainly is focused on Jesus’ passion, the Directory notes four additional lessons that we can learn from it.

1. Life as a Pilgrimage

The Directory explains that the Stations of the Cross can open us up to the idea of, “life being a journey or pilgrimage.”

When praying the Stations of the Cross, it is common to move from one station to the next. This physical movement is sometimes made even more dramatic when praying at outdoor stations that wind its way up and down a hill.

Our life is a journey, a pilgrimage, that will be difficult at times, but will lead us to our ultimate home.

2. Preparation for Heaven

Connected to the previous lesson, the Stations can remind us that our life is “a passage from earthly exile to our true home in Heaven.”

Life can be difficult and Jesus’ passion puts this suffering on full display. When praying the Stations we can reflect on our own lives and how the many sufferings we experience prepare us for our true home.

3. Uniting ourselves to Jesus’ Passion

The Stations have an obvious lesson of igniting within us “the deep desire to be conformed to the Passion of Christ.”

While we may not always feel a great inner desire to be united to Jesus’ Passion, the Stations are a reminder to us that Jesus invites us to be with us at the cross.