With Ash Wednesday behind us, we are buckled up and ready to go. Our Lenten preparations are complete, and we are on the journey towards Easter, to give alms, to fast, and to pray. We work to grow closer to God, so that come Easter Sunday, we are a different person than we are now. During these 40 days of Lent, we will stumble in keeping our Lenten promises, feel overwhelmed, or maybe even regret our fasting choices (hello, the year I decided to give up Eggs, Peanut Butter, and Pickles!) What often sidetracks us is not what we chose to do, but how much we take on for the journey. Catholic FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) if you will. We see Lenten study after Lenten study, book after book, and hear about what others are doing, and feel inspired to take action, wanting to make this THE Lent. You know, the Lent when everything changes, and on Easter Sunday we wake up never having felt better or more connected with Christ. We then commit to doing it all, and our Catholic guilt refuses to let us even think of dropping something, simplifying, or shifting course. 

This year as I set my Lenten plan, I committed to picking only one thing per action to do. I was going to re-read Rediscover Jesus by Matthew Kelly and accompany that with Hallow’s #Pray40 everyone morning, I was going to donate a set amount, and I was going to give up Hot Chocolate, something I have become addicted to over these past few weeks. Well, the morning of Ash Wednesday arrived, and I had added roughly 15 more things to that list. I was going to write a note to someone every day, donate to another cause, give up YouTube (before realizing that I, for the most part, only follow Catholic channels and one of the studies I wanted to do was going to be posted there), read two other books, and had signed up for three other Lenten studies. In the words of Charlie Brown, “good grief!” I had done it again, and in doing so, lost focus on what God was calling me to do this Lent. Where was God calling me to grow in holiness? I certainly could not have any clarity with all this noise. Yes, too much of a good thing. Inspiration and the will to make this a life-changing Lent lead to the exact opposite. 

It soon dawned on me that we have three full days between Ash Wednesday and the first full week of Lent. This must be an open door given to us by God to sort out our Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving…right? He had to know that we would want to do it all and feel a Lenten version of buyers remorse and decided to give us these three days…right? So Thursday, re-evaluate Prayer. Friday, re-evaluate Fasting, Saturday, re-evaluate Almsgiving. I am taking these three days to not throw out my preparation, but to examine what I initially said and that which was thrown unto the pile. Is there a theme, a specific hunger that I see in all that I want to do? 

So, will you join me? Let us make this a life-changing Lent, not because we did everything that inspired us, but because we focused in on the word of God.