Welcome, Lent!

Lent is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on our lives, our journeys in faith, our relationships with one another and with God. Are we, as persons, aware of any habits, attitudes, or patterns of thought that need changing? Have we taken the time to examine the communities that we belong to lately with open eyes? What sort of growth are we being called to as we begin the journey towards Easter and new life?

We've collected a few Lenten resources that may be helpful for your prayer and reflection during this season. Feel free to pass this list along to others or to suggest additions!

Lenten Water Reflection: The members of the SSND Atlantic-Midwest Province Water Committee invite you to spend time during Lent 2015 to reflect on the priceless gift of water in our world today. To assist you, they have created an online Lenten Calendar that is designed to help us ponder, study, celebrate, and protect this natural resource, which is in severe ecological crisis. The Lenten Calendar begins on Ash Wednesday, includes weekly Sunday reflections and concludes with reflections for the Easter Triduum and Easter Sunday.

Lent resource:  Creation Covenant is a 2015 Lenten resource that explores God's covenant with all creation in light of present-day habitat loss and the extinction of plants and animals.  The five-week program for individuals or groups connects Christ's suffering 2000 years ago with his suffering today "in ten thousand places" (G. M. Hopkins) so that we respond not only to Jesus’ suffering and death but also to the suffering and death within creation where God lives and acts.  Designed by Terri MacKenzie, SHCJ, Creation Covenant is a timely response to what Pope Francis wrote in Joy of the Gospel: "God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we can feel . . . the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement. Let us not leave in our wake a swath of destruction and death which will affect our own lives and those of future generations.


Pope Francis' Message for Lent 2015 can be found here - it makes for good reflective reading, especially during this first week of the season. 

Speaking of the Pope, FOCUS (Fellowship Of Catholic University Students) has put together a list of his Top 10 Lent Tips.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has created a Lenten Calendar which offers daily suggestions for prayer and activity.

The great sisters at A Nun's Life have shared this resource - 40 suggested attitudes that one could give up for Lent!