From churchyear.net:
Suggestions For Your Lenten FastMany churches have disciplines regarding Lent fasting. Orthodox Christians have a strict fast. Western Catholics are expected to abstain from meat on all of the Fridays during Lent, called days of Abstinence. Meat is defined as the flesh of warm-blooded animals. On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, official Western fast days, only one full meatless meal is allowed. One may eat other small meatless meals, so long as they do not, when combined, add up to an additional full meal. Liquids, such as coffee and teas, are permitted anytime on fast days, but snacking is not. These restrictions do not prevent you from adding your own Lenten disciplines.
Below are some ideas for restrictions/sacrifices, and beneficial additions to your Lenten disciplines. Remember that Lent is about spiritual transformation and conversion, and is basically a spiritual training period. Through our Lenten disciplines and prayer, we become more like Jesus and grow closer to God. One way we focus on Christ, and not on material goods, is to make sacrifices during Lent. For instance, watching television is not sinful in itself, but since most people enjoy it, giving it up for 40 days is a sacrifice.
Restrictions and Sacrifices (i.e. “giving up” or limiting)
Blogging
Coffee
Caffeine
Computer Use
Drinking Alcohol
Driving
Eating Out
Energy Use (gasoline, electricity, etc)
Gossiping
Internet Chatting
Meat / Red Meat
Sexual Activity
Smoking
Swearing
Sweets
Television
Using Credit Cards
Additions
Adding More Prayer Time
Giving Away More Money and Time
Reading More Scripture
Reading the Church Fathers
Studying More
Going to Confession weeklyRestrictions and positive additions often overlap. For instance, some people give up swearing for Lent, but when they accidentally do swear, they put money in a jar (50 cents to a dollar usually). Not only does this discourage future swearing, the money in the jar can be given to charity at the end of Lent.
These are just a few suggestions on how to fast during Lent. Think of some your own! One person’s fast is not always appropriate for another.
Here is an article on Lent from Spirithome.com. In it, the author has this to say about lenten fasts:
If giving up food isn’t much of a task for you, choose something else that you have to make a serious effort to give up.
Aye, there’s the rub. A serious effort. Do we make too light of this? What do you think?
How do you observe Lent? How do you encourage your children to observe it? Do you know of good online Lenten resources? If so, please leave a comment and tell us where.
I rather prefer to approach Lent in terms of my baptismal vows – though some may do so in terms of the baptismal vows of their parents – and as a time of discipline.
In ancient tradition, Lent was also observed as the period of preparation – after all – for those who would be baptised or received into the Church.
We can do so now, both in solidarity with those who are preparing for baptism and on our own, by growing further, deeper into the love and knowledge of God.
My Lenten discipline is a tad complicated, drawing from a number of orthodox and Orthodox traditions, but I shall share with you a few of the more practical aspects of what Lent looks like for me:
Study:
1) My yearly reading of ‘From the Angels’ Blackboard’ by Bishop Fulton Sheen.
2) My yearly reading of all of Farrer’s meditations on the Holy Sacrament.
3) My yearly reading of von Balthasar’s “Prayer.”
Discipline:
1) Daily Confession (sometimes I have to seek out a Catholic Priest for this)
2) The Daily Offices (Anglican) and faithfully. These tend to slip by the wayside after Easter, don’t they?
3) Daily moral inventory, in preparation for Confession.
Devotion:
)
1) Contemplative prayer, daily, before sunrise.
2) Writing “Letters to God” based on the daily readings from the Lectionary (Traditional)
3) Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament as often as is possible (though not necessarily convenient
Notice the form, though. Three groups of three, all of which work together rather like the Kyrie Eleison.
It is this time during the Christian year that I find the most edifying, and least appealing. For, it really is inconvenient, isn’t it, in our busy daily lives to make this sort of commitment?
But, oh how it opens the well springs of Easter and that blessed and wonderful day in which our Saviour and Lord was resurrected. It’s hard, at times unpleasant work, ending with inexplicable and grave joy at the feet of the Lord Jesus.
MGD
Thanks for posting this Kate.
Michael I admire your Lenten regime. I too try to make Lent an extended time of contemplation and dedication.
For me Good Friday is the height of the Christian calendar because of Christ’s sacrifice for us.
Peace,
Jim