From the desk of the pastor for March 16, 2025

The Lord be with you! I hope that everyone has started off Lent well and are engaging in its disciplines well. Part of that engagement is understanding how prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are essential spiritual exercises.

St. Ignatius of Loyola might have popularized the term “spiritual exercises” with his book of the same name, but he was certainly not the first to improve his life by them. Just as the body needs to be physically engaged for us to have good health, the soul likewise needs exercise for our spiritual health. Lent affords us a special time to improve spiritually by sharing in the unique graces of this time and our mutual support.

It should be obvious that we have to spend time in prayer to grow in grace. How much time should we spend? What should that prayer consist of? How do we know that we are doing it well? We will cover these questions more in depth in a later article, but we need to distinguish times reserved for prayer from moments of prayer throughout the day. Hopefully, we think about God often and say short prayers throughout the day. We must also reserve time for God that is only for Him. When I ask penitents how much time they are spending in prayer, I am asking about that special time. Even five minutes a day can make a tremendous difference if we are using that time well.

When we speak of fasting for Lent, we usually mean any act of penance. Generally, Catholics give something up for Lent, and this sort of penitential practice could be described as a form of fasting. The required fast days - when those of the required ages eat only one full meal and two smaller ones - are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The proper name for giving up a specific good is abstinence. On Ash Wednesday and every Friday of Lent, we are required to abstain from meat. More importantly, we are required to do one penitential act on every day of Lent - Sundays included. Also, we are likewise required to do one penitential act on every Friday throughout the year, and abstaining from meat satisfies this requirement.

Just as fasting has a broader meaning, so does almsgiving. Giving money to the poor and for their relief greatly pleases God and is a great act of love. Besides giving money, however, any corporal or spiritual work of mercy would fall under this category for Lent. For example, visiting a nursing home and talking to the residents about God - as Sr. Jane does every week - is both a corporal and spiritual work.

Lent should be a time that opens our hearts to God’s mercy ever more deeply. The more we pray, fast, and give alms for God’s sake, the more efficacious will our Lent be. May our Lenten observances truly give glory to God.

In His Sacred Heart,
Fr. John