Ash Wednesday began our annual observance of the holy season of Lent — 40 days of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, which prepares us for the celebration of Christ’s resurrection at Easter and his subsequent ascension into heaven, the completion of the Paschal Mystery.

Many years ago the Church decided to dispense in part from the rigorous Lenten prescriptions that had been customary for Catholics over time and said to all of us, pick your own way of fasting and prayer and almsgiving and stick to it.  That means you are to select a way that is meaningful. When you choose your own way of doing this it becomes a more personal  gift to God as a participation in the sufferings of Christ, a participation by making up what is lacking to the sufferings of Christ, and a proof of the continuing action of the Holy Spirit in our souls.

It is not up to me, therefore, to prescribe what one should do for Lent except to say that every Catholic’s Lenten practice should include elements of all three of those. In a recent poverty watch report it was pointed out that in our own state of Illinois, one out of every three persons lives in poverty.

So that means each one of us is able to find within arms’ reach someone who needs a little financial help and with a modicum of effort we could provide some of that. We are not asked to give to the point that we would deprive those for whom we are responsible of necessary resources, but we can give of that which we can spare. That means that we not merely give to others that which we can afford to give from excess, but what we can spare from what we would ordinarily spend on ourselves. We give to help out of love for Jesus and the sacrifice at the cross.

This, of course, many times is easier said than done, but it is something that we should all think about, particularly in these very, very difficult economic times for all of our people of this state and beyond. That is not to say, however, that fasting and prayer are not important.  We should in these days of Lent, see Christ and accompany him on his journey to Calvary. We are in a society that will do almost anything, even kill members of the human race, in order to spare ourselves what we call pain. That is a sign of terrible human weakness and decline of the human spirit.

Often we can remedy that by a closer relationship with God through prayer and also by accepting diminution of our worldly well-being in terms of food or other things in imitation of Christ’s self-denial of which the crucifix is the signal example down through history.

Lent is for all of us an observance. Go beyond that “observance” and let this Lent become for all of us this year an experience. Let us at Holy Saturday, the Easter Vigil,  be able to feel that we have somehow taken a step closer to heaven by our Lenten practice and ask God to bless us and all those we love for the effort we have expended in so doing.