365 days to an organized life - lost count!

Forgive me for neglecting the blog for about a week or so. We've bought a new van, switched insurance agents, finally figured out our state taxes, had two birthdays(lots of fun!), and the baby who just turned 1 got tubes in his ears. So my head has not been here.

Tuesday should be about cleaning but I am going to take a detour since it is Fat Tuesday. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. It is a beautiful Mass where we express deep sorrow for our sins in a similar way as the sack-cloth and ashes that was prevalent in the Old Testament. The ashes are made by burning the reeds from last year's Palm Sunday. Everything has such special significance!

Today, we are preparing for the time of Lent. We give up something as a penance. For many it was rich food. So today would be a time to use up all the milk and eggs. Pancakes are a super easy way to accomplish this.

I am glad that the penance can be totally personalized to the person or family. We have discovered trying to keep up with individual penances at this stage is quite difficult so we looked for something to do as a family. We eat fairly simply without a lot of meat anyhow. I am going to look for some more soup recipes to make once or twice a week. But otherwise, a food-related penance wouldn't be much of a hardship.

Why does it need to be a hardship? We are imitating the many examples in Scripture of 40 days in the wilderness. We are preparing our hearts for the tasks God has in store for us. It has to be something meaningful to us so that we are crucifying our flesh. But it isn't enough to simply give up something. We need to replace it with spiritually wholesome activities.

So, for Lent, we are giving up a bit of sleep. We have enjoyed the perk of homeschooling of sleeping in. Usually not past 8am but we enjoy it none-the-less. We'll be getting up before my husband heads to work and pray at least one decade of the rosary. I would like to pray 5 decades but with four little kids, we'll see what we can do. We will pray The Stations of the Cross on Fridays. We will also be going through The Way of the Cross by Inos Biffi

I am really looking forward to tomorrow. It is my first Lent as a confirmed Catholic. There is something special about joining in unity for prayer and fasting.