Lent at last

Ash Wednesday, Opening Day of Lent. Opening day of Sin season - we're gonna hunt 'em down and shoot to kill.

I need Lent this year. I feel a need for a good scouring, inside and out. I've been too careless with sin. Those venials may not be your "Go to Hell" card, but they can sure do a lot of damage, like a termite infestation, left untended.

My Protestant habits always make Lent hard for me. I still find Confession awkward and I have an aversion to it. I forget it's Friday until after I've busted the fasts to smithereens.

We keep on trying. I'm not sure I can go forty days without anything sweet (besides my morning coffee or evening tea) - but I can sure limit to Sundays, I believe, and make up for it between times. After all, in the old days, fasts and abstinences were a lot more stringent than they are now; the old folks, the saints, would be horrified at what we 21st Century Americans consider a 'sacrifice'.

This year, instead of filling my evenings with videos like The Notebook or Casablanca or Sense and Sensibility, I'm going to pop in the unwatched videos of Scott Hahn's Our Father's Plan.

I'm putting down some of my leisure reading in favor of two devotional classics: St. Francis de Sale's Introduction to a Devout Life and for the month of March, a 30-day "pocket retreat" from Sophia Institute Press.

I will be praying for you: please pray for me.