Spiritual Prep for 2021: Lent + BIS Journals

Bear with me, friends. I know we’ve barely adjusted to January. (will we at all? What a time we’re living in. God help us.) I keep finding myself surprised by 2020 being the past, my Christmas tree is still up, we even have stockings hanging on the mantle still.

That doesn’t mean I can’t or shouldn’t pray about and prepare for this year’s spiritual growth, particularly for the up-coming Lent. I’m a slow-roller. It takes me time to sort my thoughts, pray and wrestle with “what should I be doing??”, and then prepare with what I need. It’s like finding the Advent candles (or buying new ones) before the first Sunday of Advent. Lent needs a bit of preparing, too!

I have prayed with the devotionals from Blessed Is She for the last several years, and find them to be just what I need. Some days, that’s the only prayer time I have. Others, the reading is a starting point for deeper reflection.

So let’s talk Lent! The three pillars of Lent in the Catholic Church are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These three things do have a place in our regular lives. Lent isn’t meant to be the only time we pray, fast, and give alms. Rather, Lent is a time to intensify, refocus, and deepen our spiritual lives with these three practices.

Prayer

Prayer is simply our time with the Lord. In recent years, I’ve prayed with journals, focusing my heart with a theme, Scripture, and questions to deepen my prayer time. I like to light a candle, bring my Bible so I can underline passages that are used in the journal, and let the journal be a jumping-off point for my prayers. Sometimes I journal long entries, sometimes I don’t use those pages and just rest in silence.

“Set a Fire” is the journal from Blessed Is She this year. It’s all about allowing the Holy Spirit to set our hearts on fire with His purifying love. And when we allow that, we open our lives to transformation, to becoming more of the women God desires us to be.

It’s beautiful. I say that with every book. But it’s true.

This Lent, Blessed Is She has another fantastic journal for kids. I’ve often wondered how to help my children learn to pray during Lent, beyond dragging them to the Stations of the Cross (which are always scheduled at the hardest times for my kids), or trying to recreate Stations at home. I find that “just” praying the Stations isn’t a lasting prayer habit for the rest of the year. Neither is a 6-week journal; it has a limited number of pages after all, but the time spent in quiet, reading the verses along with the journal, and learning to listen to the message from God as guided by the journal prompts does set a foundation for prayer. Gradually, the practice of sitting down to give this time to the Lord and His word will (ideally!) become ingrained and natural. What becomes more comfortable for my children from this Lenten practice, plants seeds for a lifetime.

Fasting

Traditionally, fasting involves a fast from food (such as no snacks between meals, no sugar during Lent, etc) and abstaining from meat on Ash Wednesday and all Fridays. There are also any number of mortifications and sacrifices one can make during Lent, with the intent to say “no” to things which distract us from the Lord, and to increase our ability to say “yes” to His will for us. Fasting increases our reliance on Him.

While I haven’t decided on my particular fast for the season, I know one sacrifice will be giving up some of my own quiet prayer time to share it with my children instead. I cherish my early morning solitude. But, if I set my kids down with their own Bibles and journals, expecting them to be still and quiet without any guidance, I’m setting them up for failure. They grow best with my example, with my reading and praying with them. And God-willing, He’ll be growing me in the process, too.

Find the bundle with the women’s journal and kid’s book here.

Almsgiving

This usually refers to giving some portion of our goods to the poor. For some it may mean increasing a monetary tithe to your parish or to a local charity. We often buy extra food during Lent to donate to food pantries. Another idea might be offering time to help a neighbor in need, calling lonely relatives, writing letters to those who need cheering up. What about requesting a Mass to be offered for a loved one, or for the souls of the dead? Practicing charitable actions can grow our love for neighbor and Jesus, thus also increasing our personal holiness. That’s the goal, right? Growing in holiness which is really growing to be more like Christ, more into the image and likeness of God.

This may be a teeny bit of a stretch on the almsgiving pillar, but what about inviting someone to pray and study this devotional with you? Or, if you don’t feel particularly called to use this study yourself, but know someone who would like it, gift it to her!

Specifics about “Set a Fire”:

This book is all about allowing the Holy Spirit to set our hearts on fire with His purifying love. It’s really all about transformation.
Weekly themes: 
ASH WEDNESDAY WEEK // Jesus Came to Bring Fire
WEEK 1 OF LENT // Revelation of God in Our Lives 
WEEK 2 OF LENT // Make an Offering of Our Lives
WEEK 3 OF LENT // Receive the Holy Spirit into Our Lives
WEEK 4 OF LENT // Embrace Suffering in All of Life’s Circumstances 
WEEK 5 OF LENT // Experience Transformation Through His Love 
HOLY WEEK // Jesus’ Sacrifice Changes Everything for Our Lives 

Please let me know if you have any specific questions. I’m happy to answer!