Lent 2014

[SoonerTexan]

Do you "celebrate" Lent? (regardless of religious beliefs)

What do you plan on doing?

Here's ours:

--Pray together every night (both me/N and me/DH)

--No sweets/soda (need something to kick the postpartum weight loss into gear!

--Read a little bit of my CS Lewis anthology every day

--Make sure I kiss my husband once a day. So sad, but he kissed me yesterday and we both realized it had been 1.5-2 weeks. Granted, a newborn makes it worse, but definitely something to work on!

[Cleave]

I am going to read more poetry.
And practice gratitude. Every. Single. Freaking. Day.

[SuzySunshine]

- Go to mass every weekend (yes, I know this should be a regular catholic thing and maybe its just me but its very hard with our kids at their current ages.)

- Less phone/computer time when I'm with the kids, I haven't figured out how to measure this, I'm still thinking

I'm still trying to think of one more.

[Curegirl]

I'm cutting out negative thinking. This will be super hard since I tend to fret a lot!

[bobk]

Lent started today for Eastern Rite Catholics and Orthodox Christians. Our church only requires a strict fast today and Good Friday plus no meat Wednesdays and Fridays. I would like to attempt the strict fast for the duration but DW and kids would not be able to get on board with that. I do all the cooking so would have to plan separate meals.

[GrayMatterWife]

I fast from chocolate. This has been my fasting discipline every year since I was in college. It sounds superficial, but it is a major change in my lifestyle! I eat a lot of chocolate!

DS fasts by giving up a favorite toy. The girls are too young to fast. During Lent, the kids and I read a lot of Lent-related books and do Lent-related activities.

Although DD#1 (5) expressed concerned over why the dryer won't work before Easter and whether her clothes would get clean (apparently confusing "lint" and the "lint trap" with "Lent"…so, we'll be cracking the Lent books a little harder this year!).

[MrsSz]

Giving up alcohol this year... ☺️☺️☺️ okay that's cheating.

This lent I'm getting rid of the phone from 8pm to 8am and reading instead. ( doesn't sound like much but I swear Pinterest and iMSN are my bedtime relax! )

[Pollyanna]

We still are making a Lenten plan (nothing like waiting till the last minute), but I found this online and thought it was a really great idea for everyone in the family, not just the little ones. So for sure we are doing this and likely collecting coins in the rice bowl for CRS. Still need a complete plan though.




On Ash Wednesday we set out a glass jar for each child with a small copy of the jellybean prayer taped to it. We determined a behavior to go with each jellybean color (corresponding with the prayer). Each day the kids could earn a jellybean of any color they followed through on. They could not eat the jellybeans until Easter. The kids could not earn white jellybeans, these represented the Grace of Christ, which is a gift not earned ourselves. On Easter morning, the kids woke to find their jars filled up where they were still empty (lacking) with white jellybeans (Christ's grace)

This is how we interpreted each color. You can make your own ideas based on ages and needs of your children.

Red is for the blood Christ gave (each morning we chose something to sacrifice that day to earn the red jellybean. It had to be something they would have had the opportunity to have or do on that day)

Green is for the palm's cool shade (green jellybeans were earned for good deeds. It was a good dead to provide shade for Jesus with the palm)

Yellow is for God's light so bright (yellow jellybeans were earned for sharing God's light through kindness to others)

Orange is for prayers at twilight (orange jellybeans were earned for attentive behavior during bedtime prayer time and night time bible story)

Black is for sweet rest at night (these were earned for going to bed good. we used blue though, as our kids are not fans of black jellybeans)

White is for the Grace of Christ (these we could not earn as mentioned above)

Purple is for His days of sorrow (we earned these through apologizing to anyone we hurt with our words or deeds that day)

Pink is for each new tomorrow (pink jellybeans were earned when we forgave those who apologized to us for hurtful behavior)

During the course of 40 days the kids did not tire of this activity and have talked about how fun it was throughout the year.
Of course, the Easter bunny might not want to bring any more jellybeans for the baskets!!

[Thirteen]

Tara, I really love that.

This year, we are learning the Westminster catechism (DH & I).
We will all be focusing on prayer for extended family (lots of suffering and pain), as well as a few friends who have experienced great loss lately.



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[WolfpackWife]

I'm going for regular workouts, 5 days a week, and reasonable eating Mon-Fri.

Me too!