With the way our life's been rolling, I don't think we'll embrace many of the traditions and customs which we have for Lent in prior years. I do, know, however, that I will attempt to keep my family focused daily on the three pillars of Lent - prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
Thus, I sat down and quickly brainstormed ideas to suggest to my children for for personal Lenten prayer practices as well as for our collective pray-fast-give chain this year. Although most of these are no-brainers, I am sharing them here in case they might inspire you in deciding what to focus on or add to your own Lenten journey with prayer
- Attend Mass daily whenever possible.
- Make a spiritual communion together on days when we cannot get to Mass.
- Make frequent confessions.
- Get to Adoration.
- Spend extra time reading Scripture.
- Get back to praying the Rosary together more often (as opposed to Mom praying it on her own.)
- Read The Creed in Slow Motion together.
- Attend all or part of a local Lenten mission.
- Pray the Stations of the Cross.
- Make a special prayer notebook and list all of the people in our lives that need prayers. Pray for them daily, and add someone new daily.
- Return to doing a guided examen at nights.
- Pray the Jesus Prayer throughout each day.
- Reflect daily on which of the seven capital sins we have been slave to and pray for an increase in its corresponding virtue.
- Pray together every time we get into our vehicle, not just the first time each day.
- Pick someone new each day to offer our challenges and sacrifices for.
- Pay special attention to the intercessions at daily Mass and choose one to pray for especially throughout the day.
- Go to bed five to ten minutes early and spend extra time chatting with God.
- Spend an extra five minutes a day in Spiritual Reading.
- Notice what world event pops up on our screens at the start of each day and pray specifically for the people involved.
- Spend several minutes in silence each day inviting the Lord to speak to our hearts,
I would love to hear some of the ways you'll be adding extra prayers into your Lenten journey.
