Fr Peter’s Message
- Fasting • Prayer • Almsgiving
These are the three disciplines we are invited to practice during the season of Lent. These disciplines are meant to deepen our spiritual experience of the Father and the Son.
Lent is a great time for prayer – not necessarily more prayer as much as better prayer. Trying new styles of prayer can bring new vitality and response to our communion with God. Examples of this vitality include “the Jesus Prayer,” “Lectio Divina,” “The Examination of Conscience,” may be discovering the different styles of the Rosary (the Seven Dolors.)
Almsgiving is basically sharing. It is more than sharing our money (e.g., Project Compassion). It can involve an extension of our time, our life experiences, or our spirituality. Almsgiving should remind us of a broader world and lifts us from the narrow compass of our problems to the wider world of wrenching need around us.
Fasting is much more than dieting. It means eating, drinking less. Its purpose is to enable us to regain control over our appetites, something that is especially difficult in a consumer-oriented society. If we cannot control our physical bodies, we will find it much more difficult to control our spiritual life.