Last night we celebrated Mardi Gras at St Rosalie Roman Catholic Church in Hampton Bays. The littles received beads at the entrance and enjoyed food, games, face painting, projects, balloon art, and the "Silly Magician." It really was a fun time, but on the way home I had to try and explain lent to a 5 and 3 year old. They attend sunday school each week, so they know the basics of Jesus. Fasting doesn't seem like an option at this point aside from the no meat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays until Easter. I decided that we would focus, not so much on giving something up, but on really focusing on others these 40 days. Today we are going to make a 40 loop prayer chain. Each day we will pull off one name and pray for that person together and think of some way to make their day. I too am going to try and stay away from the superficial giving up of junk food and look towards helping others. If you get a chance to read Time Magazine's interview with the Pope about this Lenton Season I highly recommend it! If not here are my favorite parts:
“No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great.”
“I distrust a charity that costs nothing and does not hurt.”
“whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades.” He continues that, “We end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own.”
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