Worship Wonderings: Lenten Practices

Every year, approaching Lent, I notice the same question being asked: What are you giving up for Lent? I want to suggest instead that we add something for the season. Three traditional spiritual practices during Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. I will briefly explore these practices and how we might apply them in our contemporary lives.

Prayer

Prayer, simply put, is communication with God. For some, this may mean down on your knees, hands clasped. Personally, this has never worked for me. I prefer a more immersive approach, and I reach out to the Creator as needs arise. So, I find myself praying while in the car, walking the dog, thinking about a friend or situation, or out on the river. I “talk” to the Creator as I would a friend.

If you have difficulty focusing your prayer, you might want to consider prayer beads. Catholic siblings regularly use rosaries, but many traditions use a bracelet of beads to focus prayers. One could pray the beads using a simple, repeated prayer. Another way to use them is to think about a different person or need for each bead. This style of prayer is particularly good if one is going for a walk or a roll, or if one has trouble staying focused during prayer.

Fasting

Fasting is a regular spiritual practice in some traditions. Catholics are encouraged to fast from meat on Fridays—a tradition practised since the first century in honour of Jesus, who gave up his body on a Friday. There are many types of fasts, from complete abstinence from food and drink to ceasing to eat a particular food for a time. A “Daniel Fast” might work for you in Lent. The Daniel Fast is a vegan diet, so nothing from an animal, including eggs and dairy products, is consumed. This type of fast doesn’t limit the amount of food one consumes. A variation also limits refined sugars, processed foods, caffeine, preservatives, baked goods, and alcohol.

Another take on fasting is to limit one’s caloric intake to just one or two small meals a day. I suggest adding another dimension to your fast: consider donating the equivalent in groceries to a local food bank. While fasting might be considered giving something up, why not approach it as adding something new to one’s life for Lent? This may change the way the fast feels.

Almsgiving

The third spiritual discipline is almsgiving, a fancy term for donating time, money, or service to others. Consider what is possible and within your resources to contribute for Lent, in addition to what you may already do. This will be different for each person in a community of faith. Could you volunteer at a soup kitchen or food bank? Could you organize or help with a fundraising drive for a local charity or a project within your congregation? A fundraiser would be an excellent Lenten project for a community of faith. If you are in the habit of buying a cup of coffee daily, might you halt that practice and save the money throughout Lent, and then donate it to a charity or to your congregation?

An idea for children is to give them each a pill bottle and ask them to save a coin daily throughout Lent. Or, if you suspect that this is not possible for everyone in your congregation, you might invite them to put in a tiny piece of paper with a word or drawing of something they’ve done to help others each day. On Easter Sunday, they could either bring their saved funds to donate to a group that helps kids or celebrate what they put in their pill bottles to help others as an offering during Lent.

I invite you to change the focus of Lent from a spiritual practice of “giving up” to one of “adding in,” a practice that deepens your connection with God and brings a sense of blessing to elders, youth, young parents, children, singles, couples—to all those around you. Little acts of blessing shared every day add up through the 40 days of Lent.
What will you choose to add to your Lenten practice this year?
I pray that your Lent be a holy time of reflection leading you into a closer relationship with the Divine.

Resources

• A Bead and a Prayer: A Beginner’s Guide to Protestant Prayer Beads by Kristen Vincent (Upper Room, 2013)
• Another Bead, Another Prayer: Devotions to Use with Protestant Prayer Beads by Kristen Vincent and Max Vincent (Upper Room, 2015)
• The Daniel Fast Journey website: danielfastjourney.com

Teresa Burnett-Cole, Glebe-St. James U.C., Ottawa, Ont.