Starting the Lent

[cecith]

I think it would be great if we encourage each other about doing serious penance this Lent which starts today with the Ash Wednesday...
I have done a simple penance list including among other internal practices of penance the daily use of cilice, disciplines each day, fasting, praying with arms streched, taking cold showers, making general confession, etc. My ED aproved them and I started today.
God bless
cecith

[PenitentElaine]

Thank you for this suggestion. I agree, that such encouragement can be very valuable. The path of penance is often a very lonely one. I have come to understand that that loneliness is itself a kind of penance, a kind of interior mortification, and I accept those trials, just as I accept the physical pains with which I mortify my flesh. It was very encouraging to me, to see a good turnout for Ash Wednesday services in my parish. I think that Catholics are beginning to understand once more the importance of penance in Christian spiritual life, but those of us who feel called to asceticism still have a need for communion with fellow spirits.

Lent is the season the Church has set aside to emphasize the importance of penance and austerity. As penitents, it is natural and fitting that we should should renew and intensify our commitment to punishing our flesh for the sake of our soul. Subject to the counsel of our confessors or spiritual advisers, I believe that our Lenten penance should be of a particularly severe character. My spiritual adviser has imposed on me penances that now seem frightening, but I am confident that I will be able to obey, and that I will find rich spiritual rewards from my obedience and my suffering.

a penitent sinner

I think it would be great if we encourage each other about doing serious penance this Lent which starts today with the Ash Wednesday...
I have done a simple penance list including among other internal practices of penance the daily use of cilice, disciplines each day, fasting, praying with arms streched, taking cold showers, making general confession, etc. My ED aproved them and I started today.
God bless
cecith

[ClareFrances]

Sorry for the late reply, but needed permission of my SD to write. In addition to what my Husband and i did last year, i am not permitted to sit or stand while at home, i must stay on my knees at all times (except sleeping every other night) while in the house and at this time i only leave to attend Mass or other devotions. It is all very humbling and needed.

"Lord Jesus Christ have Mercy on me."

[PenitentElaine]

Sorry for the late reply, but needed permission of my SD to write. In addition to what my Husband and i did last year, i am not permitted to sit or stand while at home, i must stay on my knees at all times (except sleeping every other night) while in the house and at this time i only leave to attend Mass or other devotions. It is all very humbling and needed.

"Lord Jesus Christ have Mercy on me."

Thanks, Clare Frances. I hope your spiritual director will allow you to express yourself more often here. Your posts have been inspiring and encouraging to me, and surely to many others here. I've learned that humbling penances and protracted ones both are especially potent spiritually. It's easy to forget that mortification of the flesh is just one means to mortification of the spirit. Obedience and surrender of the will to a spiritual director is uniquely powerful, I have learned. Lenten blessings to you and to all here,

Elaine, a sinner

[dominic]

Clare I am humbled by that penance. Our family (and for the first time this Lent we have as a family submitted to certain collective penances to do as a family) is not to sit or lie down at home at all, except for bed; we have to kneel or stand, even for meals. But we do not kneel all the time. Maybe during Holy Week we should progress to this.

We have other Lenten commitments as a family which we have found helpful and maybe others might:-

1 On the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday we locked all the rooms in the house except the kitchen, one toilet and our small guestroon where my brothers and my dad and I sleep together on the floor in sleeping bags. So all our leisure stuff, computer games stuff and non-religious books are locked up, as is the TV. we must focus only on our religious formation and on our sins.

2 At home our feet and knees are bare. We walk on bare stone or wood and we kneel on the same.

3 No unnecessary speaking - unless the subject is to with deepening our common understanding of our faith we should not divert time to speak of it.

Sorry for the late reply, but needed permission of my SD to write. In addition to what my Husband and i did last year, i am not permitted to sit or stand while at home, i must stay on my knees at all times (except sleeping every other night) while in the house and at this time i only leave to attend Mass or other devotions. It is all very humbling and needed.

"Lord Jesus Christ have Mercy on me."

[dominic]

Clare I am humbled by that penance. Our family (and for the first time this Lent we have as a family submitted to certain collective penances to do as a family) is not to sit or lie down at home at all, except for bed; we have to kneel or stand, even for meals. But we do not kneel all the time. Maybe during Holy Week we should progress to this.

We have other Lenten commitments as a family which we have found helpful and maybe others might:-

1 On the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday we locked all the rooms in the house except the kitchen, one toilet and our small guestroon where my brothers and my dad and I sleep together on the floor in sleeping bags. So all our leisure stuff, computer games stuff and non-religious books are locked up, as is the TV. we must focus only on our religious formation and on our sins.

2 At home our feet and knees are bare. We walk on bare stone or wood and we kneel on the same.

3 No unnecessary speaking - unless the subject is to with deepening our common understanding of our faith we should not divert time to speak of it.

Sorry for the late reply, but needed permission of my SD to write. In addition to what my Husband and i did last year, i am not permitted to sit or stand while at home, i must stay on my knees at all times (except sleeping every other night) while in the house and at this time i only leave to attend Mass or other devotions. It is all very humbling and needed.

"Lord Jesus Christ have Mercy on me."