“How’s Your Lent Going?”

Well,  here we are…. moving into the first full week of Lent. How’s everyone doing? I have to tell you that I’m still trying to find the right pace…the proper equilibrium. “Are my eyes bigger than my appetite?” Am I doing enough…am I doing too much? Hmmmmm.  

It seems that the devil tries to get you “coming and going”. On one hand, he tries to get you to never pray and learn about the Lord, and on the other hand he wants to frustrate you with spiritual indigestion… trying to ingest more than you can handle…a certain “spiritual gluttony”. How do you figure this out? 

Well, if you hardly ever pray, maybe a Hail Mary at Christmas and Easter, then don’t worry about “Spiritual Gluttony”. On the other hand, here’s some clues about spiritual gluttony from a Fr. Bartuneck.

He says,  “if all our free time, all our conversations, all our everything becomes more and more stuffed with devotions, and spiritual talks, and Bible studies, and conferences, and retreats, and seminars….and even then, we are frustrated because we can’t fit more in…… instead of leading us to greater internal peace and external generosity, the flurry of spiritual over-consumption seems to make us tense, anxious, brittle, and even judgmental….. if our spiritual and intellectual eyes get bigger than our stomachs, we may be experiencing  some spiritual indigestion.” (Fr. John Bartuneck,”What’s Spiritual Gluttony) ”woooooo ……. hmmmmmmmm…….yikes.

Now what? Well,  I think it’s good to look at out our prayer life during Lent and evaluate how we’re doing…am I more peaceful… am I loving the Lord and my neighbor more? Maybe I’m doing too much or not enough. Is there good fruit from my Lenten practices? We don’t have to wait until good Friday to make some adjustments. So, let’s all relax a bit…take a deep breath and ask the Lord to guide us through Lent. He will help us because he loves us so much and wants us to do well. And remember to “smile and love”.