Innovative Lent Suggestions

[Nihil Obstat]

29 minutes ago, Peace said:

My bad. Did I write something that is not in accordance with the rule book?

I am perfectly aware that giving up sin does not meet the technical definition of fasting. If you desire to fast, please fast away to your heart's content. I do not recall telling anyone to refrain from fasting.

And the point of fasting and penance, as you are well aware, is not just to deny oneself. The point is interior conversion. The point is to improve one's relationship with God. For many people, making a firm commitment not to sin could be the best thing that they could do, and Lent is a good time to recommit to that.

The OP asked for some "innovative ideas for Lent." I offered one. So get over it.

Man, you are crankier than usual. Did you give up chocolate too?

[vee]

55 minutes ago, PhuturePriest said:

It seems Phatmass' time-honored tradition of getting ridiculously touchy and aggressively angry during Lent is alive and well. 

quiet you!

[Peace]

27 minutes ago, Nihil Obstat said:

Man, you are crankier than usual. Did you give up chocolate too?

My bad man.

[Nihil Obstat]

[Amppax]

1 hour ago, PhuturePriest said:

It seems Phatmass' time-honored tradition of getting ridiculously touchy and aggressively angry during Lent is alive and well. 

I know I have been. But hey, doesn't that mean we're doing it right? 

 

[NadaTeTurbe]

Praying the rosary in the tramway 

Working seriously my geography (I'm studying history, but geography is mandatory and I don't really like it...)

Not complaining after mass because of the liturgy/the homely/the music/the children at mass/the old people at mass/the other altar server (this one is HARD !!) 

Not gossiping about religious communities with other young catholic (there's a lot of competition between various charistmatic religious communities, and we're the first to support this rivalry...) 

[Gabriela]

8 hours ago, Amppax said:

I know I have been. But hey, doesn't that mean we're doing it right? 

No, actually.

 

 

4 hours ago, NadaTeTurbe said:

Working seriously my geography (I'm studying history, but geography is mandatory and I don't really like it...)

Quick solution: Turn your geography lessons into history lessons! That should be easy, no?

[Amppax]

6 hours ago, Gabriela said:

No, actually.

 

*Sigh* The internet really isn't conducive to sarcasm. 

[vee]

20 hours ago, PhuturePriest said:

This is a thread to throw some innovative ideas for Lent. For me, Lent is never a simple matter of choosing what I'll do beforehand and then sticking with only that all the way through. I like to modify what I'm doing throughout Lent through trial and error to try and get the best experience I can. 

Currently, the best innovative idea I have (which I just got done doing) is walking through a cemetery while praying the Rosary. Super peaceful experience, 10/10 will do again. 

Anyone have cool ideas like that for me and possibly others to try out?

I agree.  I like the flexibility of changing things up as Lent progresses.  I like to be open to the Holy Spirit  to help direct me in what will be best in my case.  I think people often start off too hard and overwhelm themselves.  A bit like sitting on teh couch a lot then saying Im going to run five miles a day rather than starting at a mile a day and building up. 

God bless you for praying your Rosary in the cemetery.  I do that too sometimes (not really in winter) and  find it very peaceful and meaningful. 

[Gabriela]

16 minutes ago, Amppax said:

*Sigh* The internet really isn't conducive to sarcasm. 

I knew you were being sarcastic. I was just messing with you.  

Okay, while I can totally see the point of adjusting one's penance (which I have done in the past), the more people approve of it the more I feel tempted to go with that myself. And the more I do that, the more I examine my intention and conclude that I'm just trying to dodge the commitment, cuz it's hard.

So you people who are totally cool with rotating your penances: How do you ensure that you're not just avoiding a hard one, or avoiding commitment itself? Commitment, too, is a penance...

I'm asking not to judge you, but so that I can hopefully find a way to do this myself—in good conscience—if I should one day find it spiritually beneficial.

[beatitude]

21 hours ago, PhuturePriest said:

What are you trying to do, ruin my life?  

I feel your pain. I am a chronic complainer. Recently I flew from England to Wisconsin with a bad cold. In the past I have always been that person looking daggers at coughing, wheezy air passengers, thinking sourly to myself, "Why didn't they reschedule their flight? What can be so important that they want to infect us all?" but now I was the one doing my best not to sneeze over everyone and hoping that my fellow passengers would be kind to me. A few minutes after takeoff, I tried to marshal my spiritual forces, saying to myself, "I can offer this up for the conversion of sinners!" Thirty seconds later, when the airport tarmac was practically still in sight, I was thinking, "No one's sins are this big." Periodically over the Atlantic I would remind Jesus of his parables about mustard seeds, and ask him what the point was of emphasising the power of small things if he was going to turn round and make me cope with this very big thing. What was I supposed to be doing here? Helping to redeem Hitler? Single-handedly? By the time we landed I was 1% Beatitude and 99% mucus, aching all over, and feverish, and if I hadn't been able to whine to God for several thousand miles (my non-complaining vow excludes him) I might have spontaneously combusted. It was a very good discipline, but not one I want to repeat too often.

[Gabriela]

3 minutes ago, beatitude said:

I feel your pain. I am a chronic complainer. Recently I flew from England to Wisconsin with a bad cold. In the past I have always been that person looking daggers at coughing, wheezy air passengers, thinking sourly to myself, "Why didn't they reschedule their flight? What can be so important that they want to infect us all?" but now I was the one doing my best not to sneeze over everyone and hoping that my fellow passengers would be kind to me. A few minutes after takeoff, I tried to marshal my spiritual forces, saying to myself, "I can offer this up for the conversion of sinners!" Thirty seconds later, when the airport tarmac was practically still in sight, I was thinking, "No one's sins are this big." Periodically over the Atlantic I would remind Jesus of his parables about mustard seeds, and ask him what the point was of emphasising the power of small things if he was going to turn round and make me cope with this very big thing. What was I supposed to be doing here? Helping to redeem Hitler? Single-handedly? By the time we landed I was 1% Beatitude and 99% mucus, aching all over, and feverish, and if I hadn't been able to whine to God for several thousand miles (my non-complaining vow excludes him) I might have spontaneously combusted. It was a very good discipline, but not one I want to repeat too often.

This is fine literature.

[PhuturePriest]

5 minutes ago, beatitude said:

I feel your pain. I am a chronic complainer. Recently I flew from England to Wisconsin with a bad cold. In the past I have always been that person looking daggers at coughing, wheezy air passengers, thinking sourly to myself, "Why didn't they reschedule their flight? What can be so important that they want to infect us all?" but now I was the one doing my best not to sneeze over everyone and hoping that my fellow passengers would be kind to me. A few minutes after takeoff, I tried to marshal my spiritual forces, saying to myself, "I can offer this up for the conversion of sinners!" Thirty seconds later, when the airport tarmac was practically still in sight, I was thinking, "No one's sins are this big." Periodically over the Atlantic I would remind Jesus of his parables about mustard seeds, and ask him what the point was of emphasising the power of small things if he was going to turn round and make me cope with this very big thing. What was I supposed to be doing here? Helping to redeem Hitler? Single-handedly? By the time we landed I was 1% Beatitude and 99% mucus, aching all over, and feverish, and if I hadn't been able to whine to God for several thousand miles (my non-complaining vow excludes him) I might have spontaneously combusted. It was a very good discipline, but not one I want to repeat too often.

I was actually meaning to just be sarcastic.  But this is a nice way of putting it. 

[beatitude]

1 hour ago, Gabriela said:

I knew you were being sarcastic. I was just messing with you.  

Okay, while I can totally see the point of adjusting one's penance (which I have done in the past), the more people approve of it the more I feel tempted to go with that myself. And the more I do that, the more I examine my intention and conclude that I'm just trying to dodge the commitment, cuz it's hard.

So you people who are totally cool with rotating your penances: How do you ensure that you're not just avoiding a hard one, or avoiding commitment itself? Commitment, too, is a penance...

I'm asking not to judge you, but so that I can hopefully find a way to do this myself—in good conscience—if I should one day find it spiritually beneficial.

I'm like you. I need to pick one thing and stick with it. In the past I've adjusted a penance if it was legitimately too hard for me (as a teenager I could be pretty excessive) but for me it's good to have one thing at the core of my Lent, partly to keep myself from dodging difficult things, but also because patience is a quality I don't possess in any great amount, and if Lent has a certain monotony it forces me to confront my impatience and grow more still. Each Lent I also choose a quality I would like to deepen or an aspect of the faith I want to know more about, and my penances are tied to that, so it's not conducive to changing them around. But I can see that some people might feel inspired by one penance to take on another, so for them the rotations do form a coherent Lenten 'journey'. If I were to try rotating my penances, this is how I would ensure that I wasn't using it as an excuse to duck out of difficult commitments - I would make sure that each one followed logically from the next, and was helping me to mortify myself in some way.

[Gabriela]

Here's a question: If I'm marking a major milestone in my career today, can I get a dispensation from my penance to eat some candy in celebration?