Preparing for Lent

Make a commitment to read the Sunday scriptures before you go to Mass. In the same way that reading up on football players, opposing teams, and coaching strategies will help you experience a game more fully, familiarizing yourself with the readings ahead of time will help you experience them in a deeper way on Sunday.
Find new ways to practice the disciplines of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. Bring can goods to the Church on Sunday, stop by the chapel and pray before the Blessed Sacrament as you drive by the Church, just for a few minutes if that is all you have. Give up one specific food item each day of Lent.
Try a new spiritual practice. Sign up for an hour of Eucharistic Adoration. Attend Mass at a parish that’s made up of people from a different racial/ethnic group. Sign up for one of the retreats offered in the parish or state. Turn the radio off on the way to work or school and pray.
Sign up for an hour of Perpetual Adoration for ACTS Men while they are on a mission retreat in Wichita, Kansas.
Reflect on where you spend your money. Do you buy too many clothes? Spend too much on dinner out? Pick one type of expenditure that you’ll “fast” from during Lent, and then give the money you would usually spend to a local charity.
Take something on — 40 days of letter writing, 40 acts of kindness, 40 phone calls to the important people in your life.
Visit a cemetery once during Lent pray for your loved ones and others.
Go to a weekday Mass one day during the week (Remember during Lent we have early Mass at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday and Friday in addition to the 8:30 a.m. Masses).
If you are out eating pick up another person’s tab and tell the waiter to tell them it is a gift from a friend from Saint Benedict parish.
Post a photo of you or your family praying on Facebook giving witness to prayer.
Read the Passion of Jesus according to Mark each week of Lent. (Mark 14:22 – 15:47.
Attend the Stations of the Cross each Friday at 7:30 p.m. and the Friday Series each week (Talks begin at 6:30 PM).
Attend one of the Lenten Talks during one of your Friday evenings. The meatless meal begins at 6:00 PM, talk at 6:30 PM.
Get friends together and pray the Rosary at the Church once during the season of Lent.
Unplug from your iPhone for one hour each day. The silence may be jarring at first, but you may find that you are able to concentrate better and will be more observant of your surroundings.
Think about a habit that has kept you from being whom God is calling you to be. Consciously give up that habit for Lent.
Attend one of Deacon Michael Loeffler’s Lenten Parish Mission talks on February 27 or 28 starting at 6:30 PM.
Spend at least one day or evening volunteering during Lent. Serve a meal at your local soup kitchen. Visit the elderly.
Make a commitment to fast from insensitive, cruel comments about others. So, no gossiping or going down the Facebook rabbit hole.
As a part of your Lenten almsgiving, make a point to learn more about a particular social issue (immigration, human trafficking, racism, the environment, public education, child poverty). Give money to an organization related to your chosen issue that supports the dignity of the human person.
Give up lunch once a week, give up your pillow one night, use only 1 gallon of water per person in your household once a day as a sacrificial for others.
Pray throughout the day, if you drive by a hospital pray for the sick, a school, pray for children, an emergency vehicle, first responders, a church, your parish, a cemetery, the dead. Be mindful of the words of philosopher Philo of Alexandria, who said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle, by prayer”.
Get to know your neighbors. Introduce yourself, plan a dinner, or bring food to an older person on your block.
Read the Works of Mercy as Jesus describes them in Matthew 25:31-46. Then put this teaching into practice and choose an act of service you can perform throughout Lent.
Celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation.