This post is in response to the article entitled Pope Francis’ Guide to Lent: What You Should Give Up This Year that Dr. Huber has provided us a
link to. The article first discusses the traditional approach to Lent most
Christians take today, which is to give something up, such as sweets or games. However
for this Lenten season, Pope Francis encourages all Christians to not only give
something up, but to do something extra for
others, and to not remain indifferent to those around us. The Pope also reminds
us that fasting and abstaining ourselves from things we enjoy must not be something done superficially nor as a trend, rather giving
up something should be done as something that others will benefit from. This is
where he derived his idea of giving up indifference towards others.
This article struck me as
something that I have personal experience with. I attended Catholic school for
all of my life until now, and so from a young age I was always encouraged and
expected to give something up for Lent. Like the typical young girl I was, I would
give up things such as ice cream or chocolates – one year I even gave up
pancakes. However, while I attended high school, my junior year religion
teacher encouraged my class to do more than give something up, she suggested we
do something for others during Lent. She
had the same idea as the Pope! That year, my friends and I raised money for
battered women who were victims of domestic violence throughout the Lenten
season. We did this among a group of five by simply sharing a jar in which we
all donated a few cents a day, almost every day, for each day of Lent. Those
coins quickly added up, and by Easter we had a decent amount of money to
donate. The following year we did the same thing, this time inviting our
friends and family to donate with us, and so we were able to raise even more!
This year I hope to do something similar; if not, perhaps I will use Elon’s Get on the Bus Program to my advantage in
order to partake in the service opportunities.
I hope this posts serves as an
example of how to put Pope Francis’ suggestion into action for anyone who is
interested.
Nice post Rayven!
ReplyDeleteNice post Rayven!
ReplyDelete