How I Give Up Indifference Towards Others

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.