Lenten Sacrifice - Will yours be a vice or a virtue

Sometimes God Calms Art Print
Karen Tribett

The beginning of Lent is typically Ash Wednesday or the day after Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras. Ash Wednesday is calculated as 46 days before Easter Sunday, and since Easter is on a different day each year, unlike Christmas, the first day of Lent is on a different day each year.

In order to find the first day of Lent, you have to know on what day Easter falls. Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernial equinox, thus Lent can begin as early as February 4th and as late as March 10th.

In 2011, Lent begins on March 9th.
In 2012, February 22nd.
In 2013, February 13th.
In 2014, March 5th.

What do you sacrifice? Should it be something that you enjoy like playing the Wii or an addiction like Smoking? I think both have there merits and should be looked at equally.

Whatever it is you decide to sacrifice, make sure that it is something you will definately miss doing without and make it specific. For years, I have given up the elevator at work and hiked up to my office on the 7th floor. Meetings on the 1st floor was always fun, and I rarely went out to lunch during this time period.

Here are Vices being given up for lent:
Alcohol.
Beer.
Wine.
Impulse Shopping.
Fried Foods.
Gambling.
Leaving Flaming Comments on SquidU.
Lottery.
Swearing.
Tobacco (Smoking or Chewing).

Here are virtues being given up for lent:
For Adults
Abbreviations while texting. lol.
Online chat rooms
Your time. Donate your time to others
Driving to Work. Take Public Transportation.
Soda.
Coffee.
Caffeine.
Facebook.
LinkedIn.
Twitter.
Eating Out.
Cholcolate
Carbonated Beverages
Online Shopping
Starbucks
Fast Foods.

What can Kids give up for lent? Yes, teaching kids that they can go without is part of religious teachings.
TV.
Facebook.
Twitter.
Handheld Game Devices.
Wii, PS3, Xbox.
Video Games.
Phones.
Texting.
Pizza.
Soda.
French Fries.
McDonalds.
Ice Cream. (Make sure your birthday isn't during lent.)

I was listening to a speaker at our Catholic Church a couple of weeks before lent in 2011 and he was giving a speech to the high school students at our church. And he gave a couple of suggestions that I hadn't thought of in that sometimes a sacrifice isn't giving up something you consume but it can also be giving up your time such as:

Playing with your younger sibling for 40 mintues once per week.
Doing the dinner dishes every night.
Visiting a retirement home for 40 minutes once per week.

Notice that the sacrifice isn't just once, it is every night or every week.

A sacrifice in baseball is to give yourself up for the better of the team. The same can be true during lent, sacrifice yourself for the better of the team, and you get to define team. Is it your family, your church, or your community. Whatever you choose, it should be something that is difficult to do or live without.

A sacrifice for your family may mean giving up the weekly pizza night, the weekly poker game, or smoking.

A sacrifice for you church may mean you sacrifice your time to help feed the hungry, volunteer for the food pantry, or help with the collection of the Easter ham drive.

A sacrifice for your community may mean bringing the elderly to the store for a shopping trip, volunteering for crosswalk duty at your local school, or teaching a computer class at your YMCA.

At the end of Lent, your sacrifice should make you feel better about yourself. You should feel like you've contributed something and it should enable you to continue to give throughout the year.

Words to Live By: Faith Art Print
Debbie DeWitt

I am a catholic, and have been practicing no meat for most of my life. However, as I started researching the reason for no meat on Fridays, its pretty clear that this is a tradition that has been passed down through the years and as a faith, we just believe.

Religious based reasons:
1. Jesus died on a Friday
2. Jewish dietary law in the Old Testament
3. To show the Lord the ability to sacrifice.
4. Vatican II relaxed the the meat restriction from every Friday.

Economic based reasons:
5. Emperor Constatine banned on Fridays due to a meat shortage
6. Fisherman went to Pope to boost their business
7. Meat was only consumed by the rich in the first millenium.
8. Most Catholics were fisherman in the first millenium.

Sacrificing something on Friday was more about showing your devotion to God and Jesus and was less about what it was you were sacrificing. Very commonly, when St Patrick's Day falls on a Friday, Corned Beef is allowed to be eaten, as long as you are showing your sacrifice in another way.

At the end of the day, your belief system is what you have to guide you through your life. There are rights and wrongs, and interpretations will continue to play out as they do today. Like the way the Bill of Rights guides the United States, so do the ten commandments guide people's faiths and beliefs of right and wrong.

If we all follow the mantra of: Do no harm (physically, spiritually, emotionally, economically) and help each other; we could all live together successfully.

I heard the term Lenten Resolution in church on the 1st Sunday of Lent in 2010. It was the first time I heard the term and was curious when our Father stated the word. The father conducting the mass is not American but from I believe Haiti or the Dominican Republic, I believe. When the father uses a word that is different, sometimes its because of the way things translates, so there may be some credence there.

I began to explor the term resolution a little farther, and know that New Year's Resolutions are popular. I think of New Year's resolutions as something that you want to change in your life, like, losing weight, exercising more, eating right, saving more money, volunteering more, or giving more to church.

A sacrifice however, is something you are intending to do without for a period of time. It may help you with a resolution, but it is intended to be something that you give up, even though you don't have to or want. A sacrifice is not losing weight, but not eating chocolate. A sacrifice is not exercising more, but walking up stairs instead of using the elevator.

Can you make a Lenten Resolution? No, I don't think you can. You can make Lent Sacrifices, which is the way I will tend to remember them.