Are You Ready for Ash Wednesday?

 Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. That makes Lent less than 24 hours away. If you're not quite ready for this most Holy Season, you've still got a few hours to prep. Get your plan for your special Lenten discipline of prayer, fasting and almsgiving in order and - a suggestion - write it down. We've had some discussion of all, specifically in our posts for Septuagesima and Sexegesima Sunday. You might also consider prepping your home and your workplace in some special manner. We provided examples of this too recently.

Besides tightening up your Lent prep, you might celebrate a little too. The days before Lent begins were traditionally a time of feasting and celebrating. That made a lot of sense in the days when people took fasting seriously - as they typically do not now. If you've got a plan to do some serious mortifications and fasting for Lent, then enjoy!

With that, let's look ahead now. We're going to embark on a Lenten journey starting today. Each week day post during Lent, starting today, we're planning to focus on one of the Stations of the Cross. To do that, we'll enlist the help of St. Alphonsus Liquori. Of all the different meditations on the Stations I've read, I always return to his. They're brief and simple - perfect for us Catholic men who frequently face urgent demands on our time from our jobs, but who nevertheless want to carve out time for special prayers during Lent. Remember that Stations can be said privately, either in church, or, frankly, anywhere. Public Stations can be a wonderful pious practice. Separately, privately walking from Station to Station in a church works well too. And then there's just praying the Stations anywhere, anytime.

We're starting a day early so we can observe all 14 Stations in a measured way before Good Friday. Before we start, St. Alphonsus Liguouri offers a special preparatory prayer:

My Lord Jesus Christ, Thou hast made this journey to die for me with love unutterable, and I have so many times unworthily abandoned Thee; but now I love Thee with my whole heart, and because I love Thee, I repent sincerely for ever having offended Thee. Pardon me, my God, and permit me to accompany Thee on this journey. Thou goest to die for love of me; I wish also, my beloved Redeemer, to die for love of Thee. My Jesus, I will live and die always united to Thee.

See what I mean about brief and simple? But oh so moving, isn't it? Now we move to the first Station. For each Station, St. Alphonsus briefly calls our attention to what's going on in that particular Station, then provides an appropriate prayer.

(In case you're not familiar with the traditional format for praying the Stations of the Cross, click HERE for a complete pdf of St. Alphonsus's version.)

Station 1: Jesus is condemned to death

Consider how Jesus, after having been scourged and crowned with thorns, was unjustly condemned by Pilate to die on the Cross.

My adorable Jesus, it was not Pilate, no, it was my sins that condemned Thee to die. I beseech Thee, by the merits of this sorrowful journey, to assist my soul in its journey towards eternity. I love Thee, my beloved Jesus; I repent with my whole heart for having offended Thee. Never permit me to separate myself from Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do with me what Thou wilt.

Relating this to our work day:

As we work our way through the day today, let's take a moment - maybe two - to recall that we - you and me - are the ones who condemned our Blessed Lord. We are responsible for His suffering and death. It's critical that we accept that responsibility.

Each of us knows the importance of critiquing our work, both when things go well and when they don't. Taking responsibility for our actions should be part of that critique. In the same way we should learn to look at our spiritual lives. Doing so will naturally, inevitably, reveal those thoughts, words, and deeds which may have been sinful. Each and every sin has been a primary and immediate cause of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. Were in not for our sins, He would not have needed to undergo His Passion. While we should do this anytime we acknowledge our sins, Lent provides a special opportunity to make this connection. By God's grace, we will not only acknowledge our guilt, but maybe, even if only in the slightest way, change our lives for the better.

So that will be our format during the Holy Season of Lent. I hope you'll come on board and journey with us.