{"id":1328,"date":"2014-04-06T18:58:13","date_gmt":"2014-04-06T22:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1328"},"modified":"2014-04-06T18:58:13","modified_gmt":"2014-04-06T22:58:13","slug":"thoughts-on-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/thoughts-on-lent\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"

From this week’s bulletin cover.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

The calendar says Spring began on March 20th<\/sup> but since then we have seen cold temperatures and snow.\u00a0 So, we wonder when we will really see some spring weather.\u00a0 I\u2019m writing this on Tuesday when the temperatures will reach 50.\u00a0 Looking at the ten-day forecast, most of the forecasted highs are in the 40\u2019s.\u00a0 That\u2019s not particularly warm but it is an improvement from the weather we have been having.<\/p>\n

March 20th<\/sup> marks the Spring Equinox when the tilt of the Earth and orbit places the center of the sun rays on the equator.\u00a0 It means spring weather is coming but it isn\u2019t an instantaneous arrival.\u00a0 The temperature rises over time.\u00a0 That\u2019s the nature of our seasonal weather.<\/p>\n

These seasonal changes are a natural part of life on Earth.\u00a0 When people move south and return home for a visit, I hear them talk about how they miss the changing of the seasons (they don\u2019t miss the cold!).\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s part of the divine order that God has set for us.<\/p>\n

Recognizing that seasons are a natural part of our rhythms, we have seasons in our Church.\u00a0 The dates of the seasons all center around two days, Christmas and Easter.\u00a0 Easter is the most important day of the year for us as Christians.\u00a0 It marks Jesus opening the door for our salvation.<\/p>\n

We will celebrate Easter in two weeks but first we have to finish our season of Lent.\u00a0 How are you doing at keeping your Lenten promises?\u00a0 I have to admit I am not doing as well as I would like.\u00a0 For Lent, I pledged to make Stations of the Cross each Friday.\u00a0 That much I have been doing (we have Stations in the parish each Friday in Lent at 7 p.m.).\u00a0 I also said I would give up my favorite candy bar and snacking.<\/p>\n

I do this as a witness that I am willing to give up one of my favorite things just to say Jesus is important.\u00a0 I also do it to lose weight.\u00a0 I can honestly say I haven\u2019t eaten my favorite candy bar during Lent.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I can\u2019t say the same for snacking in general.\u00a0 When it comes to snacking I have little will power to resist.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I don\u2019t like to keep snacks in my house.\u00a0 They get eaten very quickly.<\/p>\n

It would be good for me not to snack for my physical health but it is also to avoid overeating to be mindful of those who do not have enough to eat.\u00a0 I need to do better.\u00a0 How about you?<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From this week’s bulletin cover.\u00a0 The calendar says Spring began on March 20th but since then we have seen cold temperatures and snow.\u00a0 So, we wonder when we will really see some spring weather.\u00a0 I\u2019m writing this on Tuesday when the temperatures will reach 50.\u00a0 Looking at the ten-day forecast, most of the forecasted highs …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Thoughts on Lent’ »<\/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":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-lq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328"}],"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=1328"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1330,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions\/1330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}