{"id":1302,"date":"2014-03-02T07:18:42","date_gmt":"2014-03-02T12:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1302"},"modified":"2014-03-02T07:18:42","modified_gmt":"2014-03-02T12:18:42","slug":"making-a-good-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/making-a-good-lent\/","title":{"rendered":"Making a Good Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What follows is the cover article of this week&#8217;s bulletin.\u00a0 Some of the details apply only here at Immaculate Conception but I think the ideas as something for all of us to think about for Lent.<\/p>\n<p><b>Making a Good Lent<\/b><\/p>\n<p>This Wednesday we will mark the beginning of Lent with our celebration of Ash Wednesday.\u00a0 We will celebrate Masses with the distribution of ashes at 7:00 a.m., 9:00 a.m., 12:10 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>It is day where many people will put forth the effort to make it to Mass.\u00a0 During Lent, we abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and all Fridays.\u00a0 We will fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.\u00a0 We will give up something for Lent.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n<p>The whole idea of doing any of this is to show what it is going on in our hearts.\u00a0 Receiving ashes or abstaining from meat cannot save us.\u00a0 What does save us?\u00a0 It isn\u2019t a question of <i>what <\/i>saves us but <i>who<\/i>!\u00a0 We are saved by Jesus through his loving act of giving himself to be crucified. \u00a0We demonstrate our desire to be saved by making sacrifices.<\/p>\n<p>We make a sacrifice by giving up something important to us.\u00a0 Whatever we give up for Lent should be something important to us.\u00a0 By giving us something that we value we show that our faith is <i>more <\/i>important.<\/p>\n<p>I suggest you think about <b><i>giving<\/i><\/b><i> of your time<\/i> in a way that can help you come to a deeper relationship with Jesus.\u00a0 Are you willing to give up some time that you spend on something else to spend time with Jesus?<\/p>\n<p>Here are some ideas on how you might spend some time with Jesus this Lent:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Attend daily Mass.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t attend every day, could you make it once a week?\u00a0 Masses are 12:10 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays and 7:00 a.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.\u00a0 Daily Mass generally takes about 25 minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Attend Stations of the Cross on Fridays at 7 p.m.\u00a0 Celebrating the Stations of the Cross reminds us of what Jesus went through for us, what he gave up for us.\u00a0 Can you make time for Jesus?<\/li>\n<li>Join a Small Christian Community (SCC) for Lent (contact Pat Meyer or Mary Edsall-Golway for more information)<\/li>\n<li>Each First Friday of the month, we have Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament after the 7 a.m. Mass until Benediction at 11 a.m.\u00a0 (During Lent, March 7<sup>th<\/sup> and April 4<sup>th<\/sup>).\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to be there the whole time.\u00a0 Maybe you could come for a few minutes.\u00a0 We also have a Communal Holy Hour on the First Saturday of the Month with Exposition beginning at 6 p.m.\u00a0 (During Lent, April 5<sup>th<\/sup>).<\/li>\n<li>If none of these are possible for you, I encourage you to find some time to pray at home or you can always stop by church.\u00a0 It\u2019s open by 8 a.m Monday \u2013 Saturday and open till 3 p.m.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Peace,<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What follows is the cover article of this week&#8217;s bulletin.\u00a0 Some of the details apply only here at Immaculate Conception but I think the ideas as something for all of us to think about for Lent. Making a Good Lent This Wednesday we will mark the beginning of Lent with our celebration of Ash Wednesday.\u00a0 &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/making-a-good-lent\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;Making a Good Lent&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[65,66],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-l0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1303,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions\/1303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}