What is the sacrifice you are making this Lent to grow closer to the Lord? If you are struggling to come up with something meaningful, here are a few suggestions beyond giving up chocolate or caffeine.
Add to your life
- Read the Gospel or pray the rosary daily
- Go to Mass at least once on a weekday
- Visit the adoration chapel weekly
- Go to confession every week
- Attend Stations of the Cross weekly in your parish
- Get up 30 minutes earlier every day to pray or read Scripture
- Listen to only Christian/Catholic music or podcasts in the car
- Write one item in your gratitude list every day
- Donate food to a food bank
- Volunteer at a local charity every week
- Pray in the car with your kids on the way to school
- Visit one or more Jubilee Churches in Arkansas for Mass
- Watch “The Chosen” or other Christian programs instead of your favorite shows
Subtract from your life
- Abstain from social media
- Abstain from meat throughout Lent or fast every Friday
- Donate 40 items for the 40 days of Lent
- Don’t eat out during Lent
- Avoid online shopping
- No gossiping, swearing, complaining or procrastinating
- No makeup or manicures for 40 days
- Unplug from electronic devices — TVs and smartphones — one day a week or after a certain time each night
- No snacking between meals
- Drive in silence to work
Lenten guidelines for fasting, abstinence
- Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence for Catholics. In addition, Fridays during Lent are obligatory days of abstinence.
- For members of the Latin Catholic Church, the norms on fasting are obligatory from age 18 until age 59. When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal. The norms concerning abstinence from meat are binding upon members of the Latin Catholic Church from age 14 onwards.
- If possible, the fast on Good Friday is continued until the Easter Vigil (on Holy Saturday night) as the “paschal fast” to honor the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus and to prepare ourselves to share more fully and to celebrate more readily his resurrection.
— United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
