Hang New Curtains this Lent!

Did you ever notice that the Lenten season seems to come and go in the blink of an eye? All of a sudden you find yourself at Easter Mass wondering how time so easily slipped through your fingers. Darn! You had promised yourself that this Lent would be different. You wouldn’t be caught by surprise, yet again!

But already you can feel it happening again; you are not experiencing Lent the way you wanted.

However, that doesn’t have to be the case. You can make the conscious choice—right here, right now—to stop in your busy tracks and embrace the Lenten season.  

Lent is a season of preparing for the resurrection of Christ—to be ready to live in that resurrection  

Prepare room so that he may dwell in your heart: Your heart is where Christ wishes to dwell and where his resurrection can be most noticeably felt. Lent is the perfect time to make room in it for His presence. If your heart is filled with unforgiveness, it has no room for Christ. This Lent do an honest, even painful Examination of Conscience wherein you ask your Heavenly Father to reveal to you any unforgiveness that exists in your heart. Remember that as God has forgiven you, you are also asked to forgive others.

Clean out the cobwebs: After an Examination of Conscience where you ask God to reveal any unforgiveness that you are holding, it is important to clean out the vestiges of cobwebs that may still be lurking in the dark corners of your heart. A beautiful time to do this is during a Stations of the Cross service. As you move through the Stations of the Cross and participate in the responses, you will find the cobwebs being dusted away and preparing you for the resurrection.

Hang new curtains: The room of your heart is now ready: unforgiveness and cobwebs have been cleared out. Now it is time to hang new curtains! Many of us fall into a rut in our daily lives and forget how to live in joy. You are preparing for Christ’s resurrection and that ought to bring great happiness! So throw out the old curtains of fear and despair and exhaustion and hang new curtains of joy and praise for the resurrection.

Get out the fine china and set the table: Company is here! We aren’t doubtfully thinking that maybe He’s been resurrected. We are certain in our belief of His resurrection and every cell in our body joyfully shouts, “He lives!” This is the time we get the fine china out of the cupboard to celebrate the resurrection. Our fine china goes so well with our new curtains!

Open the front door: Whenever we have company in our home, after all the preparation is complete, we open our front door and wait expectantly, excitedly on our couch. We can’t wait to visit with our company. The same is applicable now: let’s rejoice in the resurrected Lord and celebrate by the way we live and love.

 

Are You Setting Yourself Up for Failure This Lent?

This Lent I’m doing some different things. Or maybe I should say I’m doing things differently.

Regardless of my intentions, I’ve noticed that the last few Lenten Seasons (and Advent, too) have started out as gangbusters but then have really petered out. I’m reminded of the saying “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

Talking with some friends, I’ve found that it is a far more common occurrence then most of us are willing to admit. We purchase the Lenten book, we buy all the pieces for the Advent wreath, we envision the holy and anointed times that will take place in our homes and in our hearts during these sacred seasons.

Of course, the more we plan, the more likely we are to fail. After all, 40 days is a long time to stay committed. It is test of endurance and we unwittingly set ourselves up for failure because we aren’t always realistic in what we set out to do.

So this Lent, I’m doing something different: I'm setting myself up for success.

This Lent I’m re-reading a couple of books that I have loved over the past few years; books that have fed my soul AND kept my interest. I’m not about cutting down bare tree branches and painting them and hanging Easter eggs on them (yes, that was one activity we did years ago that had less than successful results! LOL!).

This Lent I’m excited to pick up Nancy Carabio Belanger’s latest book The Gate and delve back in. It is such a great story and one that seems so fitting for my Lenten reading.

I’m also going to re-read Rosemary McDunn’s The Green Coat. Every time I read her book my heart is filled with a renewed sense of hope in all things. Perfect for Lent!

Last month I was invited to be a guest on Catholic Television’s This is the Day and talk about Young Adult literature. The fastest growing segment of the YA market is adults! This Lent I am reminded why that is the case and will be enjoying great Catholic YA literature—and invite you to do the same.

It is something I promise you will finish and feel nourished.

Lenten Resources for the Entire Family

Oftentimes the seasons of Lent and Advent are filled with our good intentions about what we will do, what we will read, and the changes we will make in our daily lives. The weeks stretch out ahead of us and we begin with great plans and an eagerness to experience the holy season in a new way.

Then reality sets in and our original plans for a “different” experience evaporate. I can’t tell you how many Lenten books sit on my shelf partially read and how many Advent wreaths are in the closet, half finished.

That all changed last year when I purchased The Sacred Heart for Lent by Fr. Thomas Williams and 33 Days to Morning Glory by Fr. Michael Gaitley.  I read The Sacred Heart for Lent on my own and cajoled my husband into the Marian Consecration by Gaitley. It was all such a blessing that this Lent I wanted to share those resources with others.

Last Lent it quickly became obvious to me that a priest brings something very unique to a book: a priest brings to his work the sacredness that arises out of his everyday life in persona Christi. There is a richness—a wisdom—that seems to radiate from the words on the page because of his lived experiences tending to the flock.

For instance, in Fr. Williams’ book, he asks very pointed questions and offers excellent understandings into the human condition. I was particularly affected by his words on “courage” and found myself seeing it in a new light. Along with the brief daily meditative insights in Father’s book,  the aspect I liked best was that each day had a unique plea to the Sacred Heart that completely resonated with me: Sacred Heart of Jesus, serene before the cross, make my heart more like yours! or Sacred Heart of Jesus, bursting with love, make my heart more like yours! and so on.

The second book I highly recommend this Lent is the Gaitley Marian Consecration book: 33 Days to Morning Glory. Even if you’ve done the lengthier St. Louis de Montfort consecration, you will still benefit from this shorter, easier-to-follow version. You can do this with a spouse, a friend, even older children. Lent is a beautiful time to consecrate your home to Christ through Mary.

Lent should be a special time for kids as well. The illustrations of Fr. Victor Kynam in The Way of the Cross for Children are simple and yet profound. Written by Kathryn Mulderink, OCDS, The Way ofthe Cross for Children is a coloring book for younger children while simply being an illustrated book for the older ones (although I admit that last year I did color one, too!). It is perfect for home or classroom. Fr. Kynam and Mulderink also teamed up for Walk New: AWay of the Cross for Teens. Father’s illustrations for this book are truly powerful and will make the authority of the Cross very real for your teen or young adult.

Be assured that these books are all excellent Lenten resources that will bless you and your family in a very special way. 

Cheryl Dickow

www.BezalelBooks.com

Finding Our Compassion for Others during this Lenten Season

A four-year-old child, whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife, saw the neighbor crying. Upon seeing this, the little child went into the old Gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When the child's mother asked what had been said to the neighbor, the little child replied, 'Nothing, I just helped him cry.'

Why I'm Giving Up Facebook for Lent

For several years I gave up chocolate for Lent; like my many parochial middle school students, the idea of going without chocolate candy for 40 days seemed like a fairly good way to “suffer” as I was called to contemplate Jesus’ suffering; it seemed to be a perfect way to give up something that I could sincerely offer up during my prayers and as I spent time in reflection.


That was until our pastor cautioned us about choosing to give up something we knew we ought to give up because it would “benefit” us; when, instead, what we should be doing is giving up something that would not be a “benefit” to us. Gee, I remember thinking, chocolate really has fallen into the “this is good for me to give up category” because I began to consider the “benefits” of losing a couple of pounds and being a bit healthier for the effort.

Now what? I wondered.

In the middle of all this I also tried some things from the It-isn’t-about-giving-up-as-much-as-it-is-about-making-changes category. That included the year where I committed to daily Rosary and the year that I wanted to make sure I said “one good and positive thing” each day to my family members.

None of these Lenten experiences stand out as ways that made the value of sacrifice something that is real, tangible and personal.

So each year, as Lent approaches, I seek to know more deeply what it is that I should be doing, or not doing, for Lent—for God. This year was no different; Ash Wednesday loomed on the calendar and I began asking, What will it be this year, Lord? Let me know, please, and I will obey.

At this point let me interject that I have been attending an Ignatian Spiritual Retreat which meets a couple of times a month and the fruit—the graces—from the exercises has been abundant, to say the least.

So off to a dinner party I go, with Ash Wednesday less than a week away, and my request to know what Lent sacrifice the Lord has in store for me being freshly made and asked of Him. I shouldn’t be surprised, then, that the first conversation I have upon entering our guest’s home is with a woman I greatly admire—a Facebook friend and a real-life friend—who says that she is giving up Facebook for Lent! My heart immediately responds with recognition that THIS is my answer.

Facebook, unlike chocolate, won’t be good for me to give up; it won’t benefit me one bit. Frankly, just the opposite is true—it may be detrimental to my business of publishing books and sharing news of author happenings and various events.

Indeed, this true sacrifice is made known to me in the last days of the contest in which one of our titles—Stories for the Homeschool Heart—is in the running for “Best Catholic Book of 2010!” If it wins, not being on Facebook and LinkedIn and writing articles means I can’t take advantage of the social network to use this win in a very significant promotional way. A win would be something that just begs for tons of Internet attention and fanfare.

And the good Lord is asking me to walk away.

That, I say to myself, is the ultimate sacrifice!

You see, I’ve easily worked 60 and 70 hour weeks for the past 4 or 5 years and am now seeing that it is paying off. But in the recesses of my heart, I know I am being called to leave the Internet Super Highway behind during Lent and spend that time with God—in reading His word, in Adoration, in Mass, in the Gospels by way of the Rosary. I have previously tried to tell myself that being a witness meant embracing this new social media and that I was doing His will; but I was only giving myself an excuse to stay connected to the Internet.

So with this contest, it became crystal clear to me what my sacrifice was to be this Lent; and I also know that is isn’t just about me removing myself from Facebook. I won’t be writing articles during Lent either; I’m removing myself from some key Internet activities so that my time with God becomes more abundant, and definitely more personal.

God is calling me and I can’t ignore Him.

What will this mean for Bezalel Books?

I have no idea; but I’m not worried. It all belongs to God anyhow.

Each of us can be replaced in a heartbeat on the Internet—no matter how popular and followed we may appear—but each of us is completely irreplaceable to God so that’s where I want to spend my Lenten time: in His care, in His arms, in His presence, in His word.