I ordered a book about Lent from Matthew Kelly that I plan to read each day and I’m planning to pray the rosary each day. Or at least a decade.I haven’t given up anything in years…started practicing again and don’t know what to give up. Should it be something that’s a vice? Facebook? Candy?
Yes. I hesitated after responding and thought about deleting my response because it’s like “Look at me! I’m so holy!” or something but then I recalled how hard it is for me to decide what to do for Lent and how these threads have helped me immensely. In fact, I was reviewing last year’s threads on this topic just a few days ago to help me to decide what to do. So I left my post because if these threads help me, perhaps they help someone else. And besides, I know darn well I’m not a holy person.It’s a laudable practice, so long as we don’t make a big show of it…which, ironically, this thread does.
Although people do like to get ideas.
Here’s a good link for the U.S. :
Ya’ll are kidding about giving up CAF, right? What about the poor people who need our help in trying to figure stuff out, and the prayer requests??Yup!Me too. Best 40 days of my year, last year!
Not to make a big show out of it but trying to get closer to Jesus. Just trying to help other people giving out ideas… Some work for us and some don’t. I think all of the things we offer up help bring us closer…Focusing on the Stations is vital. Yes.
But sacrifice of any kind is never trivial.
If we perceive that the fish dinner is a treat, that would not even qualify as a sacrifice in the first place.
It’s up to us to discern in advance, what would bother us to do without.
It’s a laudable practice, so long as we don’t make a big show of it…which, ironically, this thread does.
Although people do like to get ideas.
Oh please.
uh…I think that’s what I said.
It benefits the individual just as any discipline does. Often something is never as tempting as when we decide to give it up. I don’t particularly like cake but if I give up sweets suddenly I have a desire for cake. Going back to something isn’t bad unless the thing in question is bad or we use it immoderately.
Thank you, pianistclare.Here’s a good link for the U.S. :
usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year/lent/questions-and-answers-about-lent.cfm
As for 'giving up something, personal sacrifices are, well, personal sacrifices.
rfournier,
So we must whip them into shape! 
The soul gets ascesis through acts of mercy, or selfless acts we do to others (charity, praying for others, etc.). The body gets ascesis by giving things up; it makes it struggle a little and shows it who’s boss! The body should be subject to the soul and this disciplining helps make it subject. Christians have primarily done this disciplining with fasting. The “giving something up” for Lent is a kind of fasting, though maybe not what people usually think about when hearing the word.
Most of us would die because we are not that fit. Well, most of us are not that fit spiritually either, so we only intermittently fast. Now, you are right to say that “giving something up” only for Lent and indulging the rest of the year would be pointless. That is like exercising once a year. Won’t work that well, unfortunately.Enjoy! I’ve done it many years. It is wonderful to get rid of the daily bickering and fighting, temptations towards anger and being uncharitable.
Well, I’ll certainly miss my CAF friends…there are some wonderful people here.Enjoy! I’ve done it many years. It is wonderful to get rid of the daily bickering and fighting, temptations towards anger and being uncharitable.
CAF is really a bunch of :slapfight:! It really really is, and with those we are supposed to love the most. And when we aren’t angry at or fighting fellow CAFers we are able to be less riled up and truly love those around us with a clean heart and even temper.
Not to mention the sheer amount of TIME you will regain in your life.
We will certainly miss you though! :hug1:
Yes there are, that’s one reason I keep returning. But sometimes I think it can be more harm than good. At least for me anyways.
Indeed. Sometimes you can learn something, but mostly it’s refuting silliness, or scruples, or people who just are plain unhappy.Yes there are, that’s one reason I keep returning. But sometimes I think it can be more harm than good. At least for me anyways.
I might do it too. I have before.Indeed. Sometimes you can learn something, but mostly it’s refuting silliness, or scruples, or people who just are plain unhappy.
My priest calls it "Catholic Answers nonsense.
I’m definitely spending way too much time here. :yup:
But I have made some WONDERFUL friends here. In that respect, it’s been a great blessing.
Peace!
Agreed. But interesting people like yourself can always find a friend.I might do it too. I have before.
But I sometimes think about this. When I was a kid, lo these many years ago, we lived in the country. Even so, people were around all the time, particularly in the summertime. There was a creek below our house, and it was full of kids all summer long. It was in the Ozarks, and hillbilly adults came to the creek to get water for their animals and themselves. My dad and/or mom would go down and pass the time in conversation with them. I sat to the side and listened with fascination to the old stories and ancient beliefs.
My grandmother lived in town, and we spent quite a bit of time there. People came to visit her a lot. In the summertime, people sat out on their lawns or porches and talked to people who passed by. Lots of people on the sidewalks on a summer night.
Now, we seal our houses up to conserve heat or air conditioning. Nobody walks. Few people visit. We do see people briefly at church. I joined a parish choir because I like to sing and because it’s a circle of friends all its own.
People we work with don’t live within walking distance like in times past. We go home to a place distant from where they go home, and at work we talk about the work. We don’t play the piano in the summertime for passers-by to listen to and maybe stop by to talk about this piece or that one. If we play the piano or sing, nobody can hear us, and there’s nobody on the sidewalk to hear it anyway.
To me, disputation or no disputation, CAF is, to me, like those summer nights sitting on my grandmother’s porch talking to the passers-by. Sometimes there were friendly arguments then, too. Politics, local, regional, national. The virtues of Fords over Chevys or vice versa. In the country, it was even more disputatious. It was largely populated by hillbilly fundamentalists, and while there were sometimes mighty disputations, we did care about each other after all. I remember my dad “arguing” with a hillbilly over whether preachers benefited from education as opposed to simply “getting the call”. Never mind that my dad was Catholic. He could get into their world even though they had no real ability to get into his. But sometimes the Church came up, and I genuinely believe he persuaded some that the Catholic Church isn’t really so bad, strange as it was to them in that day and time. Now the country is largely made up of very large ranches, sometimes owned by people who don’t even live there. Some of the old families are still there, but dwindling. I go to see them sometimes. I raise some cattle myself, and sometimes sit after working with them with some locals, drinking beer. I like it a lot, but it’s occasional. They all work in some town somewhere now and oftentimes aren’t there.
Everybody talks about how too many social relationships are electronic, and how that’s a poor substitute for face-to-face socialization. But they’re better than nothing. And I say that notwithstanding that I get a good deal of social contact. But it’s just not the same for the most part. For one thing, other than in the parish context, there’s so little people have in common now, and it’s considered bad form to even express an opinion, let alone argue it. We have all somehow come to the conclusion that subjective judgments are equally valid with first principles, and in a way, there’s nothing to dispute. Worse, it’s bad manners to do so. Here we can do it, perhaps learn some things we didn’t know, feel empathy for some of the really bad things people are going through.
Oh well.