From partaking in the sacrament of reconciliation to fasting to choosing what to give up, Lent is full of traditions that Catholics around the world take part in as they prepare to celebrate Christ's passion, death and resurrection.
I spotted him sitting there as I hurried across the street, his head nodding from exhaustion and his light jacket doing little to shelter him from the biting cold.
Imprisoned and in chains, St. Paul writes to his young companion Timothy, "I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith" (2 Tm 4:7). Indeed, the Acts of the Apostles and his letters recount the hardships Paul had to endure -- "beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, vigils, fasts" (2 Cor 6:5) -- as he traveled the Mediterranean world spreading the good news of Christianity.
Jesus, as I make the 40-day pilgrimage through Lent, I ask that my journey may always be at your side. My one Lenten goal, indeed the one goal of my life, is to enter into a relationship with you. What I do, the time I give to prayer, the sacrifices I make -- I ask that all may be done as a way of growing in my closeness to you, my friendship with you, my risen Lord.
In college, I made Bluto Blutarsky from "Animal House" look like a choir boy. One night I got rip-roaring drunk, fell backward down a flight of stairs, split my head open. Spent the night in the hospital and got 12 stitches. My wild man act and partying was getting deadly dangerous.
Ash Wednesday draws one of the largest turnouts of any Mass throughout the year. While its practice has popularity — including Catholics’ selfies with ashes on foreheads posted prominently on social media — the observance of Ash Wednesday calls for something deeper than receiving ashes. Father Tom Margevicius, director of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office of Worship, said “a return to ashes represents my worthlessness without God” — and the realization of being a creature instead of the creator.
