So we are now in the Easter season. We finished our sorrowful forty day journey of Lent and are now in the midst of a joyful fifty day journey to celebrate Jesus Christ's resurrection, ascension, and the newness of life that comes from Him. I will talk more on that later. Right now I want to talk about the post-Lent journey in connection with our Lenten commitments.
So, during Lent, we all struggled with giving up something that we like or taking more action with things we should take action of. I know plenty of people that gave up soda (myself included) or restricted meat and fried foods from their diets. So now that Lent is over, we can start getting back into those things and having as much as we would like, right? Well, that's not really the purpose of sacrificing something during Lent.
The Lenten journey is all about connecting ourselves with the sacrifices that Jesus made. Through our own sacrifices we make a commitment to follow Jesus more closely so that we may be more like Him and have a deeper relationship with Him on Easter and during the Easter season.
Some of us may have struggled maintaining our sacrifices during Lent or forgot it at some point. That's all right. I myself during college tried to give up Youtube during Lent and ultimately failed halfway through. That does not mean that we can't pick ourselves up and continue to make an effort and strive to maintain that sacrifice during the rest of Lent (or even after Lent). Some of us may immediately get back in to the things we sacrificed once Easter hits. There's nothing wrong with that, but at the same time we must ask ourselves 'What was the whole point of the Lent journey if I just immediately go back to the way that I lived before Lent?'. There were years when I gave up eating meat or drinking soda during Lent and I told myself 'OK, once Easter comes, I'll get back into this stuff at a minimum' and, after gorging myself on the stuff during Easter, go back to consuming these things the way I did before Lent.
Maintaining the commitment after Lent is tough. Especially since the Easter season is a time of great joy and celebration. However, this year, I am striving to continue making a commitment during the Easter season (and hopefully afterwards). I know that there were things during Lent that were helping me not only become a healthier person, but I also grew in my faith because of my commitment. So, here is my plan for living out life post-Lent in connection with some of the commitments I made during Easter.
-Daily Rosary: This was an incredible prayer experience for me during Lent. Every time I prayed the Rosary, I focused on the Sorrowful Mysteries and contemplated the Passion of Jesus. It strengthened my understanding of Jesus' sacrifice, His suffering, and His love. It also helped me apply His struggle to my own struggles and understand what it means to take up my cross.
My hope is that I can better understand all of the other mysteries of the Rosary (Joyful, Glorious, and Luminous) and better connect Jesus' life and ministry to my own. This time, I will also have the help of a little prayer book called 'One Month Spiritual Rosary' which uses Scripture during the Rosary prayers to guide my meditation on the mysteries.
Along with the Rosary, I also hope to continue non-Rosary related daily prayer after Reach (daily prayer is a part of Reach ministry life). Thankfully, when I'm home, I will be within short walking distance of a church that has an adoration chapel.
-Soda Fast: This year, instead of immediately chugging a Mountain Dew every day, I'm hoping to limit my intake of soda to a bare minimum. I am doing this by designating one day of the week to drinking soda, similar to how Sundays during Lent are days where Lenten commitments do not have to be observed. I am thinking Sunday would be a fine day to designate as the day that I can drink sodas. My hope that on these days I will limit myself to just one or two drinks per Sunday.
The exception that I am applying to this rule is road trips. Whenever I am on a long journey (meaning longer than 2 hours), I will allow myself to have some soda to drink. This just adds to my own enjoyment of the journey and is something that I carry on from my own road trips and travels between college and home.
-Music Fast: Like soda, I fasted from my own music this Lent. And like soda, I will be designating one day of the week that I can listen to my own music, however I want to make it a separate day than when I drink soda just so I don't drive myself crazy waiting for the one day of the week to arrive. I think that Saturday will be the day that I can break out the iPod and walk around listening to my music.
Also, similar to soda, I am applying the exception rule of listening to music whilst traveling. Again, this is for my own enjoyment of road trips or just traveling in a car in general. Part of the fun of driving for me is jamming out to good songs.
-Youtube Fast: This is something I did not do during Lent but I should have. I began to notice that I was spending a lot of time on Youtube during my free time and I felt very unproductive and lazy. So, my plan is to avoid Youtube as a form of leisure. There are very few times I wish to break my fast. One exception will be whenever I want to watch a production of Shakespeare (or any other play production) as part of my theatrical retraining. The other exception would be for finding how-to guides or tutorials for anything I am learning over the summer, from swing dancing to creating a wooden canoe to survival guides.
-Saying Nice Things About Something I Would Rather Critique: This is something that I definitely struggled with during Lent and I will continue to struggle with during Easter. Sometimes my immediate gut reaction is to say something that I do not like about an experience or being critical of something. However, being focused on the negatives or on the surface level of something does not help me appreciate the good aspects of something.
If there is a movie that do not particularly enjoy, I can still find something good to say about it or find something that I enjoyed about it. If there is a song that I cannot stand, there has to be something positive that I find instead of putting it down. I think this will help me in my personal life with the people around me by not only increasing my positivity but also helping me find the good in people that I may at first be frustrated by or despise.
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