2024 - This Year’s Lenten Challenges
This year’s Lent is different than any other. I now have a little bundle of joy this time, and it makes me think of seeing Lent completely different this time. I’m seeing it through a whole different lens!
Grace and I went to a late morning Mass, and I will admit I was slightly nervous taking her to Church by myself for the first time, since my husband was at work. She did incredible though! People loved her, and many ladies told me how impressed they were that I had the courage to bring her on my own. It felt wonderful to be told these lovely compliments, and it gave me confidence! When we got home and after I got Grace situated for a nap, I then got onto the prayer app, Hallow, and listened to day 1 of their Lent Pray40 challenge, and they went through the Litany of Humility. It’s a lovely yet intense litany that goes through different ways of being prideful, releasing it, and trying to be more humble. These are some of the examples: don’t gossip, don’t worry about what others think of you, don’t always look to be praised, and be able to release the fear of being forgotten or approved of. These are hard!
Being humble is something I never realized that I have trouble with, but over the past couple of years, I have noticed it something that I struggle with. With my personality, I tend to want to be noticed and silently get irritated when I am not thanked or not praised for something that I have worked hard on. I mention silently as I don’t normally say anything out loud, keep it to myself, but I’ll get angry inside, stating in my head, “I deserve to be noticed!” Well, more like yelling I suppose than stating. So! Listening to the Litany of Humility today, it really called me out, and while I am aware that I had these things to work on, hearing all the different ways of being prideful, it was very eye opening. Humility is one thing I want to work on!
Not only that, the Monsignor who celebrated Mass this morning had a great homily to really get us thinking about this Lenten season. He wanted us to picture the room in our houses where we put all our stuff and clutter that we don’t know what to do with and we have told ourselves not to go in there because it is too overwhelming to face and clean it. He wanted us to think about this in terms of our spiritual life. It’s time to go into our cluttered rooms and clean it… that could be going to Confession, working on a virtue that is the opposite of the sin you struggle with, getting rid of something physical if that is a detriment to your relationship with Christ, etc. It was a wonderful homily, so I am thankful that Grace and I were able to go. It’s one level further than just giving something up for 40 days, which of course we can do as that is also challenging, but I love this idea.
Now that I am a mother, I want to grow stronger in my faith. I always knew I could work harder on my spiritual life. It was never as strong as it could have been. I want to be the best that I can be for Grace, be the role model for her as she grows up. So this Lenten season, I have a couple things to work on! First thing is to work on humility, and the 2nd thing is to figure out what is my clutter in my spiritual life that is holding me back from getting a stronger relationship with Christ.
What is your clutter that is affecting you? What can you do to clean it?
