In the spring of 2019, after a series of high profile attacks on Muslim people in New York City and a reported rise in Islamophobia, I felt compelled to act in tangible solidarity with this vulnerable and targeted community.

It just so happened that Ramadan was starting the next day. I decided I would observe its discipline of fasting as a way of accompaniment and solidarity.

I knew this sacred time in the Islamic tradition meant abstaining from eating and drinking from sunrise to sunset, but I discovered it was even more rigorous.

You fast from dawn—that is, even before the sun rises—until sunset.

It also did not occur to me then that when Ramadan (the dates of which are determined by a lunar calendar) falls in the spring, with each passing day, sunrise comes earlier and sunset moves later.

Unlike Lent, where the tendency is to count down the days to Easter—or to look forward to the permissible reprieve on Sundays, when the Lenten penance can be suspended — fasting gradually becomes harder through the duration of Ramadan.

Years later, I still observe this sacred Islamic time's practice of fasting. It heightens my awareness of the afflictions that so many are forced to endure and the ways our world still needs healing.

Two years ago, for example, I used the Ramadan fast to pray for the people of Ukraine, and also to become more aware of the little things I take for granted.

I could, for example, turn on my faucet in the morning and expect water would run. For millions of people in Ukraine, that was and still is not something they can assume.

I was also able to teach my classes at Fordham uninterrupted. Many children in Ukraine are still unable to go to school.

That's the gift of fasting; it attunes us with a deeper level of reality. The discipline of fasting helps me to see the world as God sees it.

Fasting has helped me to look at the world around me in a new way: We are all vulnerable, but we are not all vulnerable in the same way or to the same degree.

The American way of life

The first two weeks of my first Ramadan fast, I felt kind of proud of myself.

"I can actually do this!" I thought. But it gradually became more mentally and physically exhausting.

I learned, as I read more about Ramadan, that it was not simply about the external practice of refraining from food or liquids.

Ramadan, for Muslims, is a time to become aware of all that is going on around you so that you can come closer to God (or Allah, as the Holy One is named in Islam).

The hunger pains experienced are supposed to help the one fasting become more aware of those who go hungry without choice.

What I voluntarily endure over this annual month-long daytime fasting period is something so many in our world endure without choice.

However hungry or depleted I might feel, I can eagerly anticipate the end of the day when I can break the fast. For far too many the burdens of hunger will only increase as their bodies consistently go without food.

The American way of life is one that avoids the reality of vulnerability. We don't like to dwell on the fact that many people wonder where their next meal is coming from. We presume we are to live a comfortable lifestyle. Read more

• The Rev. Bryan N. Massingale is a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and a professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University.

Launched on Facebook and other social media on Ash Wednesday, the Archdiocese of Southwark has been uploading videos of Catholic prayers each day during Lent.

The Lenten prayer campaign aims to encourage people to connect with Jesus Christ through popular prayers either part of the liturgy or written by saints, says the Archbishop of Southwark John Wilson.

Despite the campaign not being advertised, view rates are high.

A video on the Nicene Creed has so far topped the list of most-viewed prayers. About 510,000 people watched the video featuring this, the Church's ancient statement of belief.

Padre Pio's prayer for trust and confidence in God has also been seen widely, with about 491,000 views according to viewer statistics.

Yet another prayer - "Stillness of my soul" from the 16th century Spanish mystic, John of the Cross, has been seen by over 323,000 social media users.

In addition, the Fatima prayer drew 146,00 social media users.

The Act of Contrition used in the Sacrament of Confession has been watched 105,000 times.

Some of the prayer campaign videos are very short - just 13 seconds - like St Thomas More's prayer to thank Jesus.

Others, such as the Magnificat last 56 seconds. The prayer to Our Lady Undoer of Knots - a devotion Pope Francis has made popular - is just one minute and 25 seconds long.

Other prayers already posted in the campaign which ends on Easter Sunday include the Hail Mary, a prayer to the Holy Spirit and the prayer Hail Holy Queen.

A gift from God

"The extraordinary reach of this simple prayer campaign underlines how much people do desire a relationship with Christ, but sometimes just need a little support in lifting their hearts and minds to Him" Archbishop John says.

"Prayer is a gift from God, it's his way of revealing his desire to have a meaningful and lasting relationship with each of us.

"But too often, with the busyness of life, people put up barriers between themselves and God. Too often people find it hard to take a moment to lift their hearts and mind to God."

Give Prayer a Go

The prayer campaign is part of Southwark Archdiocese's wider Give Prayer a Go initiative which began on 1 January to support the Pope's 2024 Year of Prayer.

Francis scheduled this so the Church could prepare for the 2025 Jubilee Year 'Pilgrims of Hope'.

Wilson says he wants people to "rejoice in the wonder of prayer".

"That is why I'm encouraging people to give prayer a go. Christ thirsts for us and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him."

The wider prayer campaign will also highlight ways to enrich prayer life. It suggests people read articles on the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and to encourage encouraging children and families to pray the Rosary.

Source

• The Tablet

This kind of fasting has its place.

However, if you want to discover what fasting is especially meant to achieve, fast in a way that will bring about a holy change; change for the better for you, change for a better world.

A fast that will make a difference in helping build a better world, is a Christian witness that helps advance the Kingdom of God.

It is a fast that is evangelisation in action.

Let's take our inspiration from the prophet Isaiah:

"Is this not, rather, the fast that I choose: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the throngs of the yoke; setting free the oppressed, breaking off every yoke?

"Is it not sharing your bread with the hungry, bringing the afflicted and the homeless into your house; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own flesh?"

This passage from Isaiah insists that we fast from what Pope Francis continually calls the "culture of indifference." A culture that doesn't care that there are fellow human beings among us who in one way, or another, are bound unjustly.

Countless people struggle daily to find sufficient food, clean water, decent shelter, adequate clothing and medical care.

Around the world many people are locked up in prisons for practising their faith in God, or for political, racial, ethnic reasons or for speaking out.

Others are unfairly imprisoned for minor offences.

Still, more, some 50 million people are bound up by human trafficking - modern slavery.

Then there are those who carry the heavy yoke of running from their native countries because of

• gang violence,
• war,
• desperate poverty,
• inhabitable climate change situations,
• corrupt regimes and
• greed, selfishness, and indifference.

These people seek safety and decent work somewhere, anywhere, in order to support themselves and their families, only to find that in coming to New Zealand they might part of an immigration scam run on social media or What'sApp.

Then there are the children, too little to fend for themselves, too weak to survive when times are tough.

They are often the first to die from hunger, poverty, disease, child labour, and that endless scourge: war!

The big fast, the uncomfortable fast

So, if you and I are ready for the big fast, which will often be uncomfortable and even painful at times, then we need to look no further than to the poor and vulnerable, near and far - our needy brothers and sisters.

Many wonderful organisations are dedicated to building peace, serving the poor, and protecting our common earth home. Link up with them and generously give of your time, talent and treasure this Lent - and beyond!

"If you lavish your food on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your gloom shall become like midday!" (Isaiah 58: 6-10).

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist.

All 47 parables provoke us to look at our attitudes towards each other. Do we behave maturely and respectfully? Will everyone know that God really and truly lives amongst us?

This ‘looking' sounds a little like Lent.

Parables are as ageless as they are contemporary. We've heard them many times yet some remain straight forward and others more complicated.

The unforgiving debtor (Matthew 18:21-35) simply asks: can we likewise play generosity forward when we didn't protest when accepting another generosity.

The unscrupulous judge & the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8) encourages us never to stop praying and hoping no matter the severity of being in a no-win situation.

The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) directly states to do the right thing is often about slicing through prejudices, financial classes and warnings not to get involved. No time for any risk assessment.

I find myself slightly defensive with the parable about the vineyard workers. (Matthew 20:1-16) I say it's unfair to give the same rate of pay regardless of hours worked. As an ex-union delegate, I would hope Jesus would be sitting on our workers side of the negotiating table, particularly presenting the argument for the living wage.

But the bottom line is this: - God's indescribable graciousness is for all. God's call to all, stretches right ‘across the board'. There's no jostling for position whether we've lived the Gospel all our lives or at a deathbed conversion.

The most touchingly beautiful parable, is about God's redeeming love contained in the parable of the prodigal son. (Luke 15:11-32)

At a family level, it's about a father and his 2 sons, tough love, selfishness, growing up pains, integration, sibling rivalry, but above all, it's about the ease with which God pardons.

One son asks for his inheritance. Heading off to live the high life in the big city, until that inevitable day arrives when there were insufficient funds. At the point of seeing what sin had turned him into i.e. acting like a pig - did he simultaneously come to realize that God's forgiving love awaits him. In that moment he decides to head home.

The father didn't drill about his bedraggled state, but rushes to greet him, embraces him, slips a ring on his finger, sandals on his barefeet, flings a robe over his shoulders and throws a party to celebrate.

"Bring the calf we have been fattening and kill it. We are going to have it to feast".

I can smell that joint of meat on the spit - can you?

The other son catches up with these unfolding events when he hears music coming from the house. The reconciliatory party in full swing, he confronts his father demanding clarification. Fair enough I say, he'd kept the farm running while short staffed.

"I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed your orders, yet you never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends". He protested.

"All I have is yours." (Luke 15:31) the father says back to him.

The beautiful truth stares him in the face: the need to mature from believing that the ‘law brings reward' mentality is enough to bring us to our truest inner self. It's not! God's gift of forgiveness is to be experienced. The difference between the 2 brothers is one had discovered this for himself and other had not.

You see, we are already God's gift. This is not so much earnt through obedience to the law only, but discovering at that Easter weekend, how God has loved us right from the get go. Granting forgiveness isn't solely about recognising how sin can turn us into a toxic human person, but that pardoning is so just so much greater.

It's certainly not a mystery to knock our heads against, but one of entering into it.

So now, what about a prodigal mother and her 2 daughters. That's for another time!

• Sue Seconi - is a member of the Catholic Parish of Whanganui - Te Parihi Katorika Ki Whanganui
• First published by Kotahi Ano. Reproduced with permission of the author.

Or, an even better moral: When you're deciding what to do for Lent, be childlike, not childish. Read more

The Lenten season is spent in different ways by different people. Some give up something, while others take on a new challenge. And others of us might try to read a little more or set aside greater time for prayer in a busy world.

Yet in the end, we each prepare ourselves in an individual way; we become for a few weeks a small island of experience.

We move out to the margin and silently watch the surging sea break on the sand edge, smooth stones and shale, rolled and salt-washed. We take some time to be alone with the Lord, the time may be to listen.

That in itself can be an immense challenge, it takes courage to face squarely who we are. Open grassland, treeless and torn by the wind's rage, an empty distance beyond the fence, where sea-wail and sky-howl touch the moon-cold night.

This can be an awesome place of utter loneliness where words lead back in loops unless abandonment is complete — this distant, desolate, island home.

By nature we are gregarious, enjoying the company of family and friends, the nights out, holidays, meals, and the day-to-day busyness of life.

A time to listen

That gives rise to two different standpoints. Some long for the peace and quiet of solitude, worn to a frazzle by their style of living. Others find the experience threatening and feel uncomfortable without the buzz they have grown used to.

Maybe that is why liturgical action so often involves words and song, readings and sermons. The space between words, the silence of stillness, is lost and we feel bereft.

We can recapture that stillness in the remoteness of an island when the dissolving darkness at the sky's edge makes way for a thread of orange, a breeze from the ocean.

After the storm, the distant tide begins to turn and you can walk the shore again. There you can find a personal place of solitude where only gulls wheel and screech, hunting for food, a place of isolation, where your voice, calling across the sand, receives no reply. A time to listen.

In such time, we can find a place of peace. As slowly we walk the stirring sea-edge, expecting nothing, no one calls our name. A time to listen.

But only a very few of us can manage the time of emptiness that an island offers.

A time to think

Lent has to be lived within the constraints of a daily pattern that is largely unchanged. The considered time must be found through the familiar patterns of each day. Somewhere (beyond that Island) a clock names the hour of early morning prayer.

A nearby church or a local abbey gently reminds us of the time. There, only the sea swell moves ever closer. Between sunrise and evening, we walk, each listening to the Word, returning to the point of our departure, between the running water and the rising land.

We live the experience, each speaking the Word, returning to our home. The many silent stones we gathered listen high on the hillside of our Island, awaiting our return.

We have all met the occasional person who manages to live their life at a gentler pace, those who have slowed down and show greater consideration for others, those whose response to a question or comment is not rushed and ill-thought-through but values the quality of the exchange.

In one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Watson is told by his friend that "this is a two-pipe problem". In other words, let me think about that a bit.

Too often we are quick with our answers on matters of faith and morality when, really, we should look more at the options and context. We easily forget that black and white are separated by many shades of grey.

A time to ask difficult questions

Maybe that is what Lent gives us — more time than usual to ask the difficult questions, not of others but of ourselves. And if the answers are not immediate, then we should not worry.

Not all questions have answers that are obvious, but the asking of the question at least means we have considered an issue important enough to question. Our waiting patiently is our search for faith.

One of my grandsons often started a discussion with the words, "Grandad, I have a question!" Some were easy to answer, others demanded language and ideas that were beyond him at the time.

Still, others were unanswerable but were important. I had to get across to him that thinking that a question needs an answer didn't always mean one that came gift-wrapped.

There is always a challenge facing the Church, never more so than in our own time.

Remember the high cost of Russian aggression being paid by the people of Ukraine as they fight to save their country, street by street, town by town. Life-changing decisions are being taken by ordinary people as they leave family and friends and join the streaming multitude seeking safety in another land.

I wrote these words a few days ago.

Kyiv Winter of '22

Far away in Eastern Europe

another country has turned to threaten peace

with the turmoil and high cost of full-blown war.

as speechless with fear we look on.

Remember the troops in the streets of Budapest

in the late November chill of Autumn of '56

and the sea-born standoff in the Western Atlantic,

ten days when youth faced age in mid-October of '62.

The Prague Spring quickly faded in sunlit August of '68

for once again tank tracks rattled through city streets

now repeated all these years on in late Winter of '22

as the aftershock of gun fire stuttering in the skies

of the Western world and an obdurate Soviet

leader wags a defiant finger as his militia

roll through the suburban streets of Kyiv

and missiles end their flight in a ball of liquid flame.

The outcome is uncertain as countries

hover on the brink of indecision.

Touch this ravaged, tear-soaked earth as you walk

the Emmaus Road with gentle faith of healing.

We must be confident in the Lord's own promise, that the Spirit will be with us always.

• Chris McDonnell is a regular contributor to La Croix International.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

After Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1873, the country abandoned the lunar calendar altogether by 1910. So, though the rest of Asia welcomed this year of the tiger on Feb. 1, in Japan the tiger crept in on Jan. 1.

In addition to inaugurating a new zodiac sign each year on Jan. 1, the Japanese moved all the traditional customs of the lunar new year to January.

One of those customs is the sounding of temple bells as the new year enters. The bells are struck 108 times because in Buddhist teaching there are 108 earthly desires or temptations and each strike of the bell drives out one of them.

Buddhists clearly have much more creative imagination than Catholics.

Catholic kids generally admit to two sins: disobeying their parents and fighting with their siblings. I suppose an orphaned only child is either sinless or must invent one or two transgressions.

But adults do not seem to find much more than that wrong in their lives. Using the word "morality" or some variant or it around them elicits squirming and crossed legs.

Apart from sex-related matters, "sin" is often "churchy" — such as failing to say prayers or go to church.

Someone may admit to not being an ideal spouse or parent, but for the most part we limit our guilty consciences to individual private matters rather than social or communal ones.

Of course, the reason we limit our consciousness of sin to the private realm is that we place our faith there as well. There are Christians who are upset by the fact that there are other people at the liturgy when they go to be with Jesus.

They refuse to join the community in song, prayer or posture as they conduct their private tete-a-tete with their Lord. They forget, if they ever knew or cared, that the very word liturgy means "the activity of the people."

Christianity is always plural. It is a matter of "we and God," not "me and God." Even the One with the best right to pray "My Father" when teaching us to pray in his way said, "Pray then in this way: Our Father ..."

The most basic fact about all that exists is that it is all one gift of God

Even if we look at faith as a matter of the Church (the People of God, not the management), our individualism still makes us prone to view faith from the wrong angle.

Faith is not about me or even us. Faith is about God. My faith, our faith, the faith are responses to God and if we hope to understand them, we must begin our reflection with God.

If we do that, we take a different view of life, faith, sin and self.

In the first place, we realize that it is thanks to God that we live at all. But if I exist because God in some un-understandable way that we call love chooses to give me existence, then the same must be true of every other existing thing.

The most basic fact about all that exists is that it is all one gift of God. And if that be true of everything, then it is all the more true of our fellow human beings.

Other people, no matter who they are in earthly terms are, just as I, sons and daughters of God. Ultimately, we are not such because of a shared evolutionary history that really carries no implications, but because God has made us so.

We are one, and our relationship with God is one.

Abstracting myself from the rest in order to have a relationship with God whether in prayer or repentance is abstracting myself from the only kind of relationship I can actually have with God.

My only possible relationship with God is as a member of the family of which God is the life-giver.

When I reflect upon my sins and failings, I must take into account the entire family, not just the one member I see in the mirror.

That means that my examination of conscience must include my personal as well as communal involvement in political, economic and social sin.

Do I question myself about racism, bigotry, whether my political choices are really for the common good, failure to protect the environment, my response to the climate crisis, how I make my living, refusal to follow the guidance of experts in the present pandemic, and other such sins that affect or afflict my sisters and brothers, the other children of God?

Besides sins of commission (what I have done) there are sins of omission (what I have failed to do). Especially once we get past the "I disobeyed my parents" phase, they are probably our most common.

So, my Lenten reflection must look beyond myself to see if and how my sin affects others. A good tool for that is the traditional Works of Mercy.

If we approach our examination of conscience in that way, we may find that Buddhists are not all that different from us after all.

• William Grimm is a missioner and presbyter in Tokyo and is the publisher of the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News).
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

Participants spend forty days listening to the Word of God, reflecting on its application to our lives and to the society in which we live, and then looking for ways of bringing others to Christ through all that we do each day.

The see-judge-act gospel enquiry programme is sponsored by the Australian Cardijn Institute.

"Thus, what we are about to engage in for this season of Lent can be referred to as a ‘Gospel Review' or a ‘Gospel Enquiry' the Institute says in a statement to CathNews.

The official launch was Monday, but there is still an opportunity to download the programme from the Cardijn Institute.

Source: Australian Cardijin Institute

He says he was cheered by a recent reading at Mass where a group is bewailing the fact that their "good deeds" go unnoticed when they fast.

"Part of the problem, as Isaiah is at pains to point out, are the double standards of the obsequious with their practices of denial', says Fr Tim Duckworth, leader of the Society of Mary in New Zealand.

"Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

"Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?"

"Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily." (Is 58:1-9)

Duckworth points out to Marist priests and brothers that what might be labeled traditional "Lenten practices" like fasting, hanging your head, and lying down on sackcloth and ashes all get a sideswipe when compared to what is really necessary.

He is encouraging Marist priests and brothers to turn again to the needs of the disadvantaged, dispossessed, migrants, homeless and young people and to ask: "How is it that our ministry, prayer, our Lenten observance can make a difference?"

Duckworth says that he often hears young people criticise religion and religious people.

They say religion and religious people are "overly concerned with ourselves as related to God and not that much concerned with the gospel message that Jesus was at pains to point out."

As a tangible expression of the Gospel and a response to Isaiah 58:1-9, the New Zealand leader of the Society of Mary, proposes that Marist priests and brothers use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to focus the attention of their community life and mission.

As Duckworth points out the Sustainable Development Goals receive the endorsement of Pope Francis who labels them "a great step forward".

Economic and political objectives, Pope Francis stressed, "must be sustained by ethical objectives, which presuppose a change of attitude: what the Bible would call a change of heart."

What is needed, Francis writes, is a commitment to "promoting and implementing the development goals that are supported by our deepest religious and ethical values."

Noting the importance of the religious dimension, Francis says that "those of us who are religious need to open up the treasures of our best traditions in order to engage in a true and respectful dialogue on how to build the future of our planet."

In presenting this vision to New Zealand Marists, Duckworth is realistic and acknowledges, for example, no one Marist community is going to achieve world peace alone.

However, he observes, joining with others across the globe makes it more possible.

"We do well to focus our attention on these huge issues so that we do not lose sight of all that is required to make the world a better, more just, more compassionate, more empathetic, more merciful, more loving and peaceful place", he writes.

Acknowledging the Sustainable Development Goals are the product of the United Nations, Duckworth reinforces Pope Francis' message that they are not divorced from the Christian message.

"The Christian Gospel brings additional insights and impulses into each of these Sustainable Development Goals. For us, they are all underpinned by our Christian understanding that as Children of God we are required to care for each other, for our planet and for the conditions and lives of others in our world."

Duckworth notes the United Nations set these brave goals as a target for 2030 and is urging Marists to be bold.

"We could easily be overwhelmed by them and say — well that simply isn't possible, rather than how can I add what I have into this effort."

Sustainable Development Goals

1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

Sources

• Tim Duckworth SM is the New Zealand provincial leader of the Society of Mary
• United Nations
• Vatican News

Her husband of 70 years had passed away, making the move more necessary.

After many hours of waiting patiently, she smiled sweetly when told that her room was ready.

As she manoeuvred her walker to the elevator, a worker gave a visual description of her tiny room, including the window curtains.

"I love it", she stated with the enthusiasm of a child who had just got a new puppy.

"But Mrs Jones, you haven't seen the room," the worker said.

"That doesn't have anything to do with it", Mrs Jones replied.

"Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time.

"Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how I arrange the furniture; it's how I arrange my mind.

"I have already decided to love it.

"It is a decision I make every morning when I wake up.

"I have a choice, I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do.

"Each day is a gift from God, and as long as I live I will focus on the new day and all the happy memories I've stored away just for this time of life."

Mrs Jones!

When I think of the joys in my life, the season now and the sadness like natural disasters, … Mrs Jones.

When I think of the money and possessions I have or my inability to have as much as I would like, … Mrs Jones.

When I go through a difficult phase in my life and cannot understand a particular event that causes a lot of pain and suffering, … Mrs Jones.

It seems to me we are living in a time that can bring us back to the essential, rediscovering what is permanent in our lives and what is fleeting.

This moment is a gift to be more fruitful.

I get help from looking at other events in my life that gave me joy and happiness, and take courage from John Paul II's frequent reminder: "Be not afraid!"

Almost a year since Covid broke in New Zealand, Ash Wednesday, 2021 was the first time our parish could not share a combined service with the local Woolston St John's Anglican Church.

Each year, the readings call us to a change of heart and teach us about the traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

These disciplines are a familiar part of the Christian life but more so during the season of Lent, we renew our commitment to them.

No matter what measures or restrictions may be in place due to the pandemic, we have the tools we need and that no virus can take away: charity, compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude. … Me and Mrs Jones.

• Paul Mulvaney is a freelance journalist living in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Another essential message presented to us as we received ashes is that we are to "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." Scripture often equates sin with darkness - the inability to see clearly, causing us to stumble around in this life with no clear direction; with no sure way to the truth that sets us free - free from enslaving deadly sin.

Left unchecked, with no repentance, our many collective individual sins metastasize into what St. Pope John Paul II called the "structures of sin" - those larger elements within our cultures, societies, governments and corporations that operate in the darkness of self-absorbed greed, power-lust, violence and indifference to suffering.

We desperately need to turn away from sin - both personal sin and the structures of sin. An honest look into many of our human-made institutions surely reveals decadent sinful structures that need conversion.

From abortion to war, from poverty and hunger to homelessness, from the refugee crisis to unfair trade agreements, from sweatshop labour to low frozen minimum wages, from the international arms trade to neighbourhood gun violence, from nuclear weapons to astronomical military budgets, from lack of affordable health care to COVID-19, from drug abuse to insufficient drug treatment facilities, from crumbling infrastructures to unemployment, from racism to human trafficking and from environmental pollution to climate change … it is undeniable that our world is deeply suffering from human-caused structures of sin.

As the world struggles to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, we must even more importantly be determined to emerge - with the grace of God - from all of our structures of sin. Let us instead build structures worthy of human beings for the greater glory of God!

Our nation and our world desperately need a new standard to measure human progress: not gross national product, not the stock market and not military supremacy.

The new standard we need to creatively envision and fully implement is as old as the Sermon on the Mount and Christ's final judgment of the nations scene in Matthew's Gospel. And it's as modern as Catholic social teaching.

Pope Francis continues to urge us to see how all of humanity is interconnected. And that we are interconnected to all of creation. In order to survive and thrive, we need to join hands and hearts in prayer, and to tirelessly work together to build a world of love, social justice and peace.

Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

As we more faithfully walk in the Master's footsteps, we become more and more radiantly like him. And we begin to better understand and more fully live out his related challenge to us: "You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. … Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father."

There is no better time than Lent to "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel!"

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.

How can you know this? Because you want to pray. And how do I know that? Because you're reading this.

That may sound sarcastic, but it's not.

There's a serious point here: your desire for prayer reveals something about how God created you.

Deep within you is a natural desire to communicate with God, to share yourself with God, to have God hear your voice, or, more basically, to encounter God.

Deep within you is a longing to be in a relationship with God. So you long to pray.

You may doubt many things when it comes to prayer.

You may doubt that you'll be able to pray.

You may doubt that God wants to communicate with you.

You may even doubt God's existence. But you cannot doubt that you feel a desire for prayer. After all, you're reading this. So clearly something within you desires prayer.

Where does the desire for prayer come from?

From God.

The most common way God draws you closer is by placing within you the desire to be closer, the desire that drove you to think about prayer and to read this article.

Strange as it sounds, your reading of these lines at this moment is a sign of God's call.

How else would God draw us closer, other than by planting a longing inside us?

Once I saw a ceramic plaque in a retreat house that summed this up: "That which you seek is causing you to seek."

This insight is helpful to those beginning their journey of prayer because it helps them feel, even before they've started to pray, connected to God. It helps them to know that God has taken the initiative, that God is calling to them, that God desires them. It helps people take the first tentative steps toward God.

Many of us have felt that there is more to life than what we know.

We feel a sense of incompletion. We long to feel complete, to be connected, to be satisfied, to know. Inside us are nagging feelings of longing, restlessness, and incompletion that can be fulfilled only in a relationship with God.

There is a hole in our hearts that only God can fill.

Augustine put it best when he wrote: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord. And our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

Your desire to pray is a sign that God desires you.

It's an indication God is calling you. And that is perhaps the most important reason to pray.

Not simply because you desire it, but because the desire is a sign of something else.

You desire to pray because God desires it.

A second reason for prayer is a slight reframing of this.

We pray because we want to be in relationship to God.

That may sound obvious - of course we pray to be closer to God. But it's important to state that the aim of prayer is not simply physical relaxation, mindfulness, knowledge, or a connection to creation, as important as those things are.

These are goals that many people mention when speaking about meditation.

But the goal of prayer is closer union with God.

More basically, we pray because we love God. William Barry SJ writes: "The primary motive for prayer is love, first the love of God for us and then the arousal of our love for God."

We pray to come to know God as well. "Who is God?" is an important question in the spiritual life. So are "Who is God for me?" and "Who am I before God?"

Prayer reminds us of our need for God.

It reminds us that we are not the centre of the universe and that we are not God.

Sometimes when things are going well, we can grow arrogant and complacent in our self-sufficiency.

Prayer, which places us in the presence of God in an intentional way, reminds us of who is in charge, or rather who is nurturing us. Gerard W. Hughes writes in God of Surprises: "To begin prayer it is sufficient to acknowledge that I am not self-sufficient, that I am not the creator of myself and creation. If I can do this, then I acknowledge that there is some power - I may not know whether it is personal or not and may be in complete ignorance of its nature - greater than I." Continue reading

Jesus grieved, unashamed - his friend was dead.

He remembered Lazarus' face, his welcoming smile, his laughter. He remembered the hours they had sat talking; chewing the fat, shooting the breeze.

Jesus wept for all that is passing.

Lazarus was gone, dead and buried and Martha and Mary were distraught.

Did Jesus feel their judgment for not coming immediately?

He wept.

In this age of Pandemic, people are dying alone. Buried alone.

No ritual.

No brothers and sisters, nor mothers and fathers, children and friends and those that loved them gathering in grief, to support each other, to say farewell, to be filled with sadness at a young life cut off or to celebrate a life well-lived, no wake to give them a good send-off.

Jesus weeps with those who mourn because he was one of us.

Bethany is close to Jerusalem, just over the Mount of Olives, on the road to his passion and crucifixion.

Was he afraid?

Did have more than an inkling that his Mission was to end in betrayal and death.

Did he weep for himself?

Once again we are his companions on that journey into Jerusalem, jubilant on Palm Sunday, breaking bread together at the Last Supper, standing in the shadow of the Cross, weeping with his mother and a few loyal friends.

Rolling the stone, sealing the tomb - a place of decay.

If Jesus was merely going through the motions knowing that three days later, he would merge from the tomb, then the crucifixion is a farce. He couldn't have known that it was a passion play with a happy ending.

It is we, who are the children of the Resurrection, who believe that Jesus rose, not merely like Lazarus, but resurrected, called by GOD to break the power of sin and death.

And although our faith offers us a new and eternal life it doesn't remove our pain, it doesn't stop us weeping.

Click this link or the image below pray, watch and listen.

But not this year.

The media are showing the wrestling tournament taking place in an empty venue. Spectators are banned from the arena.

In various parts of the world, bishops have cancelled Sunday Masses and other gatherings as a preventative measure against the spread of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, a potentially fatal infection that seems headed to becoming a pandemic.

It is disappointing, but sadly not too surprising, to see how many Catholics are trying to get around that cancellation, intruding into hitherto small-group Masses at convents and religious houses and thereby forcing those communities to either close to outsiders or cancel their own in-house liturgies.

A nursing facility for sick aged sisters where I celebrate a weekly Mass has had to cancel its Sunday liturgies because of the number of outsiders who have tried to come, seeming to think that their being at Mass is more important than protecting the lives of the elderly sisters who are especially at risk if they are exposed to the virus.

I know of a community of male religious in Tokyo who are hosting all comers, reportedly filling their church with people whose own churches are obeying the diocesan cancellation order.

This abets the disobedient, the thoughtless, the selfish and the stupid while endangering society at large. But it presumably fills the coffers of the religious through augmented collections that will probably not be earmarked for epidemic relief.

Those people show no concern for the rationale behind the cessation of large-group Masses nor obedience to leaders of the Church and civil society. They selfishly feel that their private piety is more important than the health and safety and even the lives of their sisters and brothers.

Some have even disputed the authority of their bishops to issue such cancellation orders.

For the record, bishops have that authority, regardless of what people who seem to consider themselves super-Catholics might think.

In fact, given the present state of the epidemic and the uncertainty about its likely course, to not cancel church gatherings would be irresponsible on the part of bishops in affected areas.

Apart from those who consider themselves exempt, we Catholics in virus-affected areas have in effect been forced to give up Mass for a major and not-yet-clear duration during Lent.

The challenge and opportunity for us is to see how this deprivation might deepen our faith, hope and love in preparation for renewing our baptismal commitment at Easter whether we are able to gather then or not.

Of course, the cancellation of parish liturgies does not prevent our using the time we would usually spend taking part in the Mass to read and reflect on the prayers and readings of the day.

We may find, in fact, that we are able to develop better personal "homilies" than those we may endure in normal circumstances.

We can even have a "collection," putting aside money to be later contributed to our parishes because though Masses have been cancelled most major expenses have not been.

Salaries must still be paid, and at least in Tokyo the electric company has shown no indication that it will cancel charges to churches that are not gathering each Sunday.

Our Lenten fasts and sacrifices are meant in part to increase our awareness of the situation of our brothers and sisters who must do without not by choice, nor for a limited time, but because of enduring poverty, famine, oppression or lack of opportunity.

Might not our "fasting" from Sunday Mass give us a closer communion with our sisters and brothers who must do without Eucharistic celebrations for months or even years at a time because there are no priests available to join their gatherings?

Such is the case, for instance, in the Amazon region of South America, and at their recent synod the bishops of Amazonia declared that ordaining married men should be considered as a means of alleviating that enforced "fast" from the Eucharist. Pope Francis is apparently waiting for one or more of those bishops to say he will take that step.

What is true of Amazonia is going to be true of the rest of the Church as well.

The epidemic of priestlessness will spread. In much of the world, most of the leaders of Eucharistic celebrations are white-haired if they have hair.

That is not a good augury for the future.

Perhaps the temporary Eucharistic fast imposed by the coronavirus will give us all a sense of urgency in preparing to head off Eucharistic poverty.

Then, if we — all of us — search out creative answers to the problem, we may find that just as fasting can improve our physical as well as spiritual health, our giving up Mass for Lent will have improved our Church's health.

• Father Bill Grimm is the publisher of UCA News and is based in Tokyo, Japan.

Some people in the Catholic community worldwide are debating whether food made to look and taste like meat is allowed on days of abstinence. Read more

For millions of Christians around the world, 40 days of "fasting" kicked off on Ash Wednesday, marking the beginning of Lent.

In the United States, even as younger Americans drift further away from organized religion, the practice of Lent persists.

The Lenten season culminates on Holy Thursday, which falls during the week before Easter Sunday. (This year, Lent runs Feb. 26 to April 9.)

Those observing — including Catholics and many Christians in liturgical traditions — historically fasted or refrained from eating meat, especially on Fridays, or gave up other luxury items, such as sweets or fatty foods.

Resisting temptation was meant to be a time of reflection, an opportunity to grow closer to God.

In 2015, 47 per cent of U.S. Catholics said they gave up something or did something extra for Lent, according to the Pew Research Center. One-third of cultural Catholics said they would observe Lent, as did 12 per cent of former Catholics.

Millennials are leaving religion in greater numbers than ever before, but they are more likely to observe Lent than baby boomers, according to 2014 research from Barna Group, an evangelical Christian polling group.

Twenty per cent of millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) responded that they were planning to fast, compared with 10 per cent of boomers (those born between 1957 and 1964).

And increasingly, "fasting" is being adapted for modern times.

What millennials choose to give up aligns with other current movements — environmentalism (going vegan, for example), an awareness of the pitfalls of technology (forgoing social media) and a commitment to social justice causes (volunteering).

For those who did observe Lent, according to the 2014 Barna Group research, giving up social media, phones and video games was especially gaining in popularity For Elizabeth Harper, who is in her 30s and identifies as Catholic, Lent is an opportunity to reflect on "some of the ways I've legitimately sucked as a person and ways I can make the world just a tiny bit better by going through a small, uncomfortable confrontation and correction," she wrote in an email. Continue reading

It's a question I get asked in some form at least a couple of times each Lent, from Christian and non-Christian friends alike.

While it's a good question, I can't help but find it a bit strange.

Restrictive food fads are the rage

From my perspective, our society is full of people denying themselves present pleasures in order to achieve greater goals.

Whether it's trying to look good in a swimsuit or prevent climate change, diets aren't exactly uncommon.

From vegetarian to vegan to the controversial ‘keto' diet, restrictive food fads are the rage.

Yet there is something about curtailing comfort as part of your faith that strikes people as odd.

Perhaps it is explained by our culture moving further from formalised religion and more towards the solely ‘spiritual'.

With this tendency to see the experience of faith as something intangible, it becomes harder to understand how it could have anything to do with whether you have a glass of wine at dinner or a chocolate biscuit with tea.

Physical reality and faith are connected

The Catholic faith, however, does not see our physical reality as separate from our faith and our experience of God.

Simply put, we understand that what we do with our bodies can affect our souls.

Each day is filled with a host of decisions, desires, and impulses, many of which are in competition with and even contradict each other.

The many small decisions we make every day, the desires we decide to follow, and the impulses we choose to act on all contribute to moulding our character and even our soul.

Even on a practical level, obeying each of these small impulses can take up a huge amount of time as we search for that perfect feeling of ease and satisfaction.

More importantly, however, it can paper over the deeper questions and desires of our lives. Why confront the difficult questions of life if right now I can make myself comfortable?

Lent helps us wean

This is where Lent comes in. It's a reminder to put things aside that normally give us comfort and that we perhaps rely on too much. By weaning ourselves off these things that we are inordinately attached to, the hope is to find ourselves more free. Free to pursue real meaning.

Throughout this struggle there is an almost constant call for comfort and distraction — food, drink, entertainment, you name it. Naturally, these things are not inherently bad, but if we only attempt to satisfy these surface-level desires and neglect our soul we will find ourselves wanting on a deeper level.

In 1979 Pope John Paul II said to a group of students in Washington D.C.:

Materialistic concerns and one-sided values are never sufficient to fill the heart and mind of a human person.

A life reduced to the sole dimension of possessions, of consumer goods, of temporal concerns will never let you discover and enjoy the full richness of your humanity.

It is only in God — in Jesus, God made man — that you will fully understand what you are.

Asceticism as a balancing power

So now the burning question is — how do we achieve this balance of body and spirit?

Unsurprisingly, the answer lies in a term that has largely fallen out of fashion: asceticism.

Typically defined as a very severe form of self-discipline, the word tends to conjure up images of starved-looking monks in desert hermitages.

However, asceticism does not always have to look so extreme; in fact, the origin of the word has a much more mundane meaning.

It comes from the Greek word askesis which refers to practice or training. The skill we are practising is self-mastery.

Fasting and abstinence

During Lent we carry out asceticism in two main ways, fasting and abstinence. Fasting is when we limit our quantity of food and abstinence is when we refrain from something specific, usually meat.

Out of all 365 days in the year, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are now the only* two official days of fasting and abstinence in the Catholic Church.

Additional, personally-applied asceticism is optional, but recommended.

Arguably, the Church doesn't ask much of us by way of fasting and abstinence. She asks for small changes and hopes for big results. But the reality is that to maintain even small changes can be a real challenge.

Why am I doing this, again?

Almost as important as asceticism itself is to remember the meaning behind the practice.

While the sacrifices we make in fasting and abstinence should certainly challenge us, we must also have the humility to know that we will struggle and fail in small things.

Instead of having the pride of achieving an impressive level of asceticism, it is far more important to recognise our need for God's grace and support in working towards even our modest goals.

Our fasting should remind us how we are not indeed self-sufficient and we rely on God to provide our daily needs just as much as we need Him to answer the deepest desires of our hearts.

By practising even small levels of asceticism this Lent — yes, even by giving up chocolate — we can become less prideful, build self-mastery, and better balance our bodily and spiritual needs, both of which are of vital importance — one for now, the other forever.

With this in mind, we bet you can take it a step further than chocolate …

• Rachel Sherlock is a Catholic journalist, writer, and co-ordinator for Youth 2000 Ireland. First published in "Called to More"
• *There is also the weekly Friday Penance which in Ireland can be observed by any of the following means: abstaining from meat, other food, alcoholic drink, or smoking or by attending Mass, making special effort in family prayer, visiting the Blessed Sacrament, or making the Stations of the Cross.

He then looks you square in the eyes and says, "If you wish to live a healthy long life, you must stop eating junk food and living a sedentary lifestyle, and start eating plenty of healthy foods and exercise every day."

Your doctor's wakeup call to you here would demand a radical physical lifestyle change. That is, if you wish to live a healthy long life.

At Lent's beginning on Ash Wednesday, many of us were signed on our foreheads with a cross of ashes and told to "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel."

That sign, and those words, from the Divine Physician are a radical spiritual wakeup call to all of us who wish to live healthy spiritual lives now in this world and to prepare well for the next world in eternity.

Dust to Dust

Being crossed with ashes is meant to alert us that our bodies will soon be much like the ashes on our foreheads.

It should be a sober reminder that this life is coming to a quick close and that we have no time to lose in turning away from the evil of sin, that is, all that hurts and separates us from God, others, creation and ourselves.

And to be faithful to the Gospel!

In this year's papal Lenten message, Pope Francis warns us that "Once God's law, the law of love, is forsaken, then the law of the strong over the weak takes over. The sin that lurks in the human heart (Mk 7:20-23) takes the shape of greed and unbridled pursuit of comfort, lack of concern for the good of others and even of oneself. It leads to the exploitation of creation, both persons and the environment, due to that insatiable covetousness which sees every desire as a right and sooner or later destroys all those in its grip."

But more than any other time, Lent is the season for conversion - a radical change of mind and heart, a time to walk out of the darkness of sin and into the merciful, peaceful, joyful, loving light of Christ Jesus! And the sacrament of reconciliation (confession) is a wonderful heavenly gift to help us advance along the lifelong process of conversion.

Three Holy Practices

Additionally, the three holy practices of fasting, prayer and almsgiving -especially stressed during Lent - are indispensible to our growth in the life of the Spirit - which is the Kingdom of God.

"Fasting," Pope Francis astutely says, is about "learning to change our attitude towards others and all creation, turning away from the temptation to ‘devour' everything to satisfy our voracity and being ready to suffer for love, which can fill the emptiness of our hearts.

"Prayer, which teaches us to abandon idolatry and the self-sufficiency of our ego, and to acknowledge our need of the Lord and his mercy.

"Almsgiving, whereby we escape from the insanity of hoarding everything for ourselves"

Every day several thousand children die from hunger and hunger-related diseases. Remember them in your prayers and giving.

And please consider a Lenten donation to our starving brothers and sisters in South Sudan.

"Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel!"

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings about Catholic social teaching. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net.

His teacher gave him a wipe and told him to take it off Read more