Lent began a little early this year, with Ash Wednesday last Wednesday. So we are five days into it.<\/p>\n
I am making a conscious effort to make a "good" Lent. One thing I am going to do is try and use the Magnificat<\/strong> prayer book on a very regular basis, with the hope that this very good habit will carry over past Lent.<\/p>\n Magnificat<\/strong> is a publication with a modification of Divine Office prayers which vowed religious are required to pray during the day. The goal of course is to sanctify your day. Brigid and I have had a subscription to Magnificat<\/strong> pretty much since they started publishing it about eight years ago. It is a monthly publication in a convenient size, and has morning and evening prayer, the day’s Mass prayers and readings, a daily meditation (very interesting; sometimes by a contemporary author, sometimes a classic), and other good stuff. <\/p>\n Unfortunately we’ve both gotten out of the habit of using it regularly. I am going to try and get back into it. So far these five days, I haven’t been perfect, but I am using it semi-regularly.<\/p>\n And I am going to try and read (as I always make a special effort to do during Lent) several good, spiritual books. Last year the best one I read was a book by Fr. John Neuhaus entitled "Death on a Friday Afternoon". As the title implies, a meditation on Christ’s passion and death – the "seven last words." <\/p>\n This year I am going to read Fr. Ronald Rolheiser’s book "A Holy Longing" which was given to me a couple of years ago by my friend John Lally (actually it may have only been a long term loan, but I still have it) but which I’m only now getting around to. I’ll read it that is, when I find it again, since having had it a few days ago I have misplaced it. I hope to also read another of Neuhaus’s books, "As I Lay Dying", which is about his own near-death from cancer several years ago.<\/p>\n Also on my short term list "Spontaneous Healing" by Andrew Weil, MD, sub-titled "How to Discover and Enhance Your Body’s Natural Ability to Maintain and Heal Itself". And a history work, "the Fall of the Dynasties" written in 1963 and sub-titled "The Collapse of the Old Order, 1905-1922."<\/p>\n AND, I want to lose five or six pounds. That’s about the amount I’ve gained since my MSK discharge back in January 2006. I’ve decided it’s not about exercise for me – I am doing enough of that – it’s about avoiding over-eating.<\/p>\n So that’s the game plan, subject to modifications – like if I can’t find the Rolheiser book. I may have to substitute a re-read of a Fr. Raymond Brown (the great Catholic scripture scholar) book for Rolheiser.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lent began a little early this year, with Ash Wednesday last Wednesday. So we are five days into it. I am making a conscious effort to make a "good" Lent. One thing I am going to do is try and use the Magnificat prayer book on a very regular basis, with the hope that this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9488,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4228\/revisions\/9488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}