Two weeks into the season and I’m still struggling to make a meaningful preparation for Lent. Two days ago, we were supposed to hold our Light Group (small prayer group for The Feast) meeting. These were the reflection questions:
1. 1. How are you observing the
Lenten season?
2. 2. How do you plan to apply
prayer, fasting/sacrifice, and almsgiving/charity in a more practical way?
I was stumped. I don’t know why, but
it seems harder for me this year to think of my Lenten acts than in previous
years. I’ve thought of what to do but am finding it so hard to stick to it. While
reflecting on the questions, I came across the term “Pre-Prayer-ing” which was
part of the title of a book*. It captivated me as I felt it encapsulated the
essence of what my preparation should be – Prepare my Heart with Prayer. But I
still had to seek God to ask how.
PRAYER
Praying is a daily habit for me
already but how do I deepen it? God answered this indirectly through a writing
assignment I was given for Secret Shares**. Not to preempt the episode because
that story is so rich in content anyway, I’d just like to share this “teaser”
because it reminded me how I should pray.
In her youth, our interviewee asked, “How
do I pray?” While searching for that answer, she developed a way of praying
that was child-like, open and candid. Her prayer attitude towards God reminded
me of a photo of St. Joseph I found on the internet. I was looking for visuals
for my novena to him as today, March 19, is his feast day. The photo showed the child
Jesus looking up at St. Joseph with so much love and trust for a parent and St.
Joseph looking back at Him with loving indulgence.
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| Loving earthly father & divine Child - ctto |
This was what I pictured when our
interviewee described the way she prays. It was with this father-child dynamics
that God talked her through the break-up of her month-old marriage, that God
led and blessed her as she migrated to a far-off place and that God told her
she would be healed of a dreaded disease.
As my way of Pre-Prayer-ing for Lent,
I will make the effort to deepen my conversations with God like she did. To be
more open and child-like and candid. Lately I have fallen into formulaic
prayers. I need to sit my inner child in front of God again. I was like that
before. Even if at times I had bratty prayers, I think God enjoyed it more
because of the honesty.
FASTING and SACRIFICE
Aside from the usual no-meat Fridays,
I thought of giving up social media specifically Twitter for Lent because it wastes
so much of my time and keeps me up very, very late. But I keep backsliding
mainly because I want to keep abreast of happenings in the political scene. I
guess I just have to trust that God too wants what’s best for our country. He
can monitor the situation better where He is and can even do something about
it. All I can do is report and block trolls. Besides, I learned from one of the
sermons that fasting is not just sacrificing what we like for this period. Its
higher goal is to discipline us into a lifestyle pleasing to God. It should
carry over into our life after Lent.
CHARITY
Ash Wednesday was special for me
because it was the first time after two years I was able to hear mass in
church. But it became more special because of the homily that day. The priest
said, “Don’t simply give up what you like to eat, instead give to charity the
money you would have spent. You will not only feed your soul, but you will also
feed a hungry person.”
Charity is not just giving materially.
It can also be a giving of time and patience. For me, it would be pressing “Skip
Ad” for my 91-year-old Papa who can’t get the hang of it even if it has popped
up a thousand times while he’s watching his FPJ movies on YouTube.
P.S.
*Pre-Prayer-ing the Way - a
how-to book on prayer created for the outreach teams of Saddleback Church, Dr.
Rick Warren, Pastor
**Secret Shares airs live on Tuesdays
at 8:00 pm on Facebook
