What I'm Doing for Lent 2022 — Updated

 I was reading Joseph's post about his Lenten plans and liked his comments about fasting and abstinence on Ash Wednesday.

Fasting is eating much less food than you normally would; abstinence in this context is not eating meat. The point of this penance is not to punish yourself. It's to "acquire mastery over our instincts and freedom of heart." Rather than being led around by our appetites, we practice saying "no" to them so that we are free to focus on other, more important things.

I also was interested in his practice of giving up fiction for Lent and toyed with that myself. I'm not doing it now, but it is under consideration for Passion Week when I want to up the ante a little.

I also found The Curt Jester's post valuable as he realized, “Wow do I need to kick up my Lenten penance a notch.” More about that in a minute.

I also was struck when he said, "I am over the age where it is no longer mandatory that I fast, but I do it anyway." Huh. Gosh maybe I am too. And it turns out that I am as the required age range is 19-59. However, at this point I don't need my "get out of fasting free card" and will save it for when I'm no longer in my usual good health. Also, I fast every first Friday for the Church, our priests, etc. and that has slightly gotten me into better shape for that sort of penance. (Hey, it is like finding you've strengthened a spiritual muscle! Woohoo!)

Now, about kicking up Lenten penance. I already had a specific spiritual fast planned that was going to be pretty challenging. However, I was turning over the idea that a physical fast challenges you in a completely different way. Both can bring you closer to God as you clear out more room for the Holy Spirit, obviously, but I've never done both before.

Then my daughter, Rose, mentioned that she was going to try to be heroic this Lent, in the fashion recommended by the Burrowshire Podcast. This turned my thoughts in a new direction which encouraged my thoughts about spiritual/physical fasting even more.

I have tended not to share this sort of thing on the blog, along the lines of following Jesus' advice about praying by myself and not boasting that I'm fasting. However, since I got a lot from these bloggers, I will follow suit!

• Spiritual fasting from criticizing others or attributing motivations to them.
   
• Physical fasting from lunch. If I've got a lunch commitment (and I've got two of them this week, believe it or not, made before I had this idea) then I will choose something I don't like. Ugh. I'd rather fast.
  
  
• Almsgiving will follow Bishop Barron's suggestion from a prior Lent. I will give to whatever groups solicit me in the mail. If I don't have much of that happening, then I will pick weekly donations from my parish's envelope packet and give to some that I usually skip. "The Church in Eastern Europe," I'm lookin' at you!
  
  
• Prayer will be added in the form of the Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. I have the iBreviary app on my phone and use it daily to check out the 2nd reading in the Office of Readings (coming from a saint/Church father/Catechism, etc.). Since I did a silent retreat last fall I've been doing morning and evening prayer but I'm curious to see what it will be like in this structured form.
  
  
• Reading nonfiction is going to be Meditations on Vatican Art by Mark Haydu and The Sermons of St. Francis de Sales for Lent. Fiction is going to be a reread of The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. It is going to be our April book for my book club and I jumped the gun, listening to Colin Firth's excellent narration before Lent even began. It was so good that I got the print version and will be reading it slowly through March.
  
  
• Household fasting is going to take the place of having mostly meatless meals. Maybe two a week will have meat as a major component. We did this in July, following Kendra Tierney's suggestion from her excellent Catholic All Year Round book. It was an interesting challenge to have many meatless meals without making others feel as if they were living a dreary sacrifice, especially my mother who is not Christian. She never noticed. It was also good discipline for us in a housewifely way as it is very easy to have meat be the anchor around which all else dances. I'm actually looking forward to it.