Preparing for Lent at Work
It's time to prepare for Lent at work. No, we're not too early with this. And yes, we need to make special preparations for the workplace.
As for it not being early, we note that Lent looms just around the corner, in case this escaped your attention. Easter being on the early side this year (March 27th), naturally Ash Wednesday will come early too: February 10th, a mere eight days away. Our traditional liturgical calendar, the one observed in the Tridentine Rite of our Catholic liturgy, already reminded us on the last two Sundays. The priest wears purple on Septuagesima, then Sexagesima Sunday, and will wear purple again this coming Sunday, dubbed Quinquigesima. This practice, dropped in the new calendar that our Novus Ordo follows, served to remind us.
(The result of eliminating these Sundays of Lenten preparation has been that Lent comes almost as a surprise to many of us. All of a sudden it's Ash Wednesday. We trudge to church for our ashes. Then what? For too many of us, we're deep into the holy season before we get our bearings and start practicing one or more of those three spiritual disciplines Holy Church has recommended from time immemorial: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Hence the tradition of Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquigesima. It made a lot of sense, didn't it? So if you're not attending the traditional Catholic liturgy that observes the old calendar with it's prudential reminders in the three weeks before Lent begins, you've just been reminded.)
As for special preparations for the workplace, we really do need to think about this and prepare. Here's why: For most of us, work takes up a good chunk of our time. You can't just separate it from the rest of your life, as so many do. "Can't just separate," means you shouldn't walk into your place of business, shut the door behind you for however long you're working, and then return to your somehow separate personal life at the end of the day. We're not talking here about mixing business and personal. You don't want to spend your time at work conducting personal business, or chatting (vocally, texting, etc.) with your spouse, children, friends, etc. You're not paid to do that. You can't be diligent in your appointed service (as we pray in that wonderful prayer to start the day, "A Morning Resolve") unless you put your full, undivided effort into your work.
On the other hand, we don't want work to be a self-contained, compartmentalized chunk of our lives. To live that way would be to live like those Catholics who keep their "religious life" restricted to going to Mass on Sunday (if they even go to Mass). Once Mass ends, that's it for God. They go about their personal and business lives with hardly a thought of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with no prayers for the intercession of Our Blessed Mother and the Saints, as they attend to their daily activities - that is, until something goes wrong. And even then, once that's resolved, they're back to their old habits.
But even we Catholics who don't shut the church door behind us every Sunday sometimes have the tendency to shut the door behind us when we get to work. And in doing that, we literally grab the bulk of our day and try to tear it out of God's hands - or at least we think we do - and rely strictly on the sweat of our brow to make the most of our time at work. That's foolish. If you're not explicitly expressing a prideful attitude that you don't need - or worse, don't want - God in your work day, then you're at least hampering your ability to sanctify your work. And you do want to sanctify your work, don't you? Bring God into the workplace - as we've discussed so many times - and you'll find you'll draw closer to Him in every part of your life. It's as simple as that.
Which brings us back to preparing for Lent. There's much to be done now to get your ducks in a row before Ash Wednesday. None of us just shows up for meetings or presentations at work without preparation. (Right?) In the same way, we won't just "show up" at work during Lent without some spiritual preparation.
So start thinking about and preparing yourself so you can apply your Lenten spiritual discipline of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving at work. We'll have some more specific suggestions next time.
As for it not being early, we note that Lent looms just around the corner, in case this escaped your attention. Easter being on the early side this year (March 27th), naturally Ash Wednesday will come early too: February 10th, a mere eight days away. Our traditional liturgical calendar, the one observed in the Tridentine Rite of our Catholic liturgy, already reminded us on the last two Sundays. The priest wears purple on Septuagesima, then Sexagesima Sunday, and will wear purple again this coming Sunday, dubbed Quinquigesima. This practice, dropped in the new calendar that our Novus Ordo follows, served to remind us.
(The result of eliminating these Sundays of Lenten preparation has been that Lent comes almost as a surprise to many of us. All of a sudden it's Ash Wednesday. We trudge to church for our ashes. Then what? For too many of us, we're deep into the holy season before we get our bearings and start practicing one or more of those three spiritual disciplines Holy Church has recommended from time immemorial: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Hence the tradition of Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquigesima. It made a lot of sense, didn't it? So if you're not attending the traditional Catholic liturgy that observes the old calendar with it's prudential reminders in the three weeks before Lent begins, you've just been reminded.)
As for special preparations for the workplace, we really do need to think about this and prepare. Here's why: For most of us, work takes up a good chunk of our time. You can't just separate it from the rest of your life, as so many do. "Can't just separate," means you shouldn't walk into your place of business, shut the door behind you for however long you're working, and then return to your somehow separate personal life at the end of the day. We're not talking here about mixing business and personal. You don't want to spend your time at work conducting personal business, or chatting (vocally, texting, etc.) with your spouse, children, friends, etc. You're not paid to do that. You can't be diligent in your appointed service (as we pray in that wonderful prayer to start the day, "A Morning Resolve") unless you put your full, undivided effort into your work.
On the other hand, we don't want work to be a self-contained, compartmentalized chunk of our lives. To live that way would be to live like those Catholics who keep their "religious life" restricted to going to Mass on Sunday (if they even go to Mass). Once Mass ends, that's it for God. They go about their personal and business lives with hardly a thought of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with no prayers for the intercession of Our Blessed Mother and the Saints, as they attend to their daily activities - that is, until something goes wrong. And even then, once that's resolved, they're back to their old habits.
But even we Catholics who don't shut the church door behind us every Sunday sometimes have the tendency to shut the door behind us when we get to work. And in doing that, we literally grab the bulk of our day and try to tear it out of God's hands - or at least we think we do - and rely strictly on the sweat of our brow to make the most of our time at work. That's foolish. If you're not explicitly expressing a prideful attitude that you don't need - or worse, don't want - God in your work day, then you're at least hampering your ability to sanctify your work. And you do want to sanctify your work, don't you? Bring God into the workplace - as we've discussed so many times - and you'll find you'll draw closer to Him in every part of your life. It's as simple as that.
Which brings us back to preparing for Lent. There's much to be done now to get your ducks in a row before Ash Wednesday. None of us just shows up for meetings or presentations at work without preparation. (Right?) In the same way, we won't just "show up" at work during Lent without some spiritual preparation.
So start thinking about and preparing yourself so you can apply your Lenten spiritual discipline of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving at work. We'll have some more specific suggestions next time.
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