The Positives and Negatives of Lenten Sacrifice: Advice from Good Shepherds

By something negative, I mean that each person should commit themselves to giving up something or a number of things. This sacrifice should be serious and demanding. The self-control that we exercise in giving up a legitimate pleasure strengthens our will and curbs the inclinations of our passions.

By something positive, I mean that each one should also do some kind of act that we would not normally do on a regular basis. Attending daily Mass, visiting the sick, volunteering time at the parish or praying a Sunday evening Rosary with the entire family are positive acts of virtue that have helped many people progress in their relationship with God.

~ Fr. James Farfaglia; excerpt from here. ~

More: "At this season let us increase in some way the normal standard of our service, as for example, by special prayers, or by a diminution in food and drink." He insists on our doing something. More prayer. Thinking about doing more prayer is not more prayer. Get up five minutes early to make more time for prayer and you are doing something. Give up five minutes of looking at the newspaper and give it to God in prayer. That is doing something.

Less: less food, less drink, less sleep, less talkativeness, less looseness in speech (cf. RB 49:7). Many folks are put off by Saint Benedict's proposals, but that may be because they read them without taking them in reflectively. He says "less"; he doesn't say how much less. This is where Holy Father Benedict meets Saint Thérèse, the Doctor of the "Little Way." The "less" of Saint Benedict is the very little thing of Thérèse: the word saved for recreation, the second or third cup of coffee, the unkind judgment nipped in the bud.

~ Fr. Mark Kirby; excerpts from here. ~

Lent has as its words, "I repent and I am sorry." Knowing that our sacrifices are made in light of Our Lord's sacrifice on the Holy Cross, we may find it helpful to measure and evaluate our sacrifices against these words.

Lord, I repent of my sins and I am sorry. I am so sorry that I will give up television entirely...I will give up eating between meals...I will give up warm showers...I will sleep on the floor. Don't these seem a bit more serious?

Fr. S; excerpts from here. ~