Lenten Plans

Lent is upon us early this year!  And Ash Wednesday coincides with Valentine's Day.

As someone who gets migraines from chocolate, yet can't help indulging in it, often to excess, I am kind of happy to have a reason not to eat chocolate on Valentine's Day.  Plus, being the curmudgeonly type, I resent how a saint's feast day turned into something Victoria's Secret uses to boost sales  So I'm happy!

We plan to do up Mardi Gras here by making some gluten free, dairy free cookies.  I plan to do the regular peanut butter cookie.  I also learned of a cut out sugar cookie recipe that uses almond flour instead.  So we are going to attempt those.  And also I think I will make rice krispie treats tomorrow to bring to our AHG meeting.  So we'll get some cookie eating in between now and Wednesday.

My plans for Lent are getting rather complicated so I thought I'd spell them out:

1)  This is the first year of many years that we haven't gone to one daily mass during the week. With community college schedules that has gone by the wayside in the 2017-18 school year.  So I am going to get myself up on Wednesday and Friday mornings to go to the 8 a.m. at a nearby parish.  I doubt anyone will come with me which is just fine.

2)  At my own parish I hope to attend each of these at least once in Lent:  Confession, Adoration, Stations of the Cross and Sunday evening Benediction.

3)  One time praying in front of an abortion clinic with 40 Days for Life.  My parish always does this on Thursdays, which is a day I can't really.  So I'll have to figure this out.

4)  I finally joined a small community of faith group at my parish.  That starts February 21 on Wednesday evenings at 7.  Usually, I procrastinate planning for my co-op classes, but in Lent I am going to have be more responsible and plan ahead of time, if I am going out on Wednesday nights.

5)  We've already given up so much food because of this dratted anti-inflammatory diet that we aren't going to give up any particular food this Lent.  We'll fast on Ash Wed and Good Friday and refrain from meat on Fridays, but that's it.

6)  Instead I am going to give up junk mail!  It is a fairly arduous task to get yourself off of mailing lists, I discovered, so I am going to try to do a little of that each day.

7)  Finally, I am going to refrain from facebook, except for 15 minutes in the a.m and 15 minutes in the p.m. (using a timer to keep me honest!).  I still want to go on facebook for the Catholics for Zero Waste group as well as a few others, but not too much!

I am trying to think about more in the almsgiving category of fasting, prayer and alms practices for Lent.  Coincidentally I do cook for the homeless the first Wed of the month so there's still that.  And also coincidentally I am dinner captain for our next Hypothermia Shelter week.  We have St. Patrick's Day as well as the Wednesday before.  So I will be doing that, but probably we should come up with another thing to do as well.  Something that includes the whole family.