Lent is nearly upon us!  This week, Wed. March 5 begins Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten Season.

Masses for Ash Wednesday will be as follows:

6:30pm – St. Patrick’s in Hampton (Bilingual)

7:00pm – St. Mary’s in Ackley (English)

The Lenten Season is where we highlight and emphasize three pillars of our spiritual life: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving.  Being a penitential season, we often focus on the “sacrificial” aspect: giving up things, fasting from food, abstaining from meat on Fridays.  These sacrifices/penances are not only focused on own holiness (cultivating self-control, our own holiness); but also have an eye towards “Love of Neighbor” through almsgiving.  Perhaps when we fast from a meal, we might donate the cost of that meal to charity.  But we might also have an eye towards “Love of God.”  Maybe the time I’d use preparing for and eating a meal, maybe when I fast from that meal, I use that for prayer instead.  Or the time I spend watching TV or on social media, maybe I fast from that, and offer that time for prayer.

While all three things are important: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving, I want to invite us to especially focus on PRAYER this Lent.  If nothing else, pray more for Lent!

Make more time for prayer this Lent!  Both Sunday Mass, but also personal prayer!

Pray more!

My upcoming bulletin columns will have a particular focus on PRAYER throughout this Lenten Season.  Some suggestions of ways to pray, how to pray, how to pray more attentively, some methods of prayer, etc.  All to help you to pray more and better, to go deeper in your relationship with the Lord this Lent!

But however you pray, the important thing is THAT you pray.  That you make the time.  “But, Father Kevin, I’m not a very good at prayer.  I get distracted, or don’t really know how to pray well.”

That’s Ok!  I live by the philosophy, that if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly!

Better to take time for prayer and do it “poorly” than to not pray at all!

But the Lord uses whatever time we give Him, so whatever time we give to prayer is NEVER wasted!  Even if we feel it is “poor prayer,” the important thing is we spend time with the Lord.  The Lord can use it!

So let’s become a actively praying people this month!  Watch my upcoming bulletin columns to help you in your life of prayer as well!

God’s blessings on you all this Lenten Season!

Peace,

-Fr. Kevin