I am sometimes asked, “If someone had to choose just one Lenten penance, what would it be?” My answer is this: “Consider daily Mass during Lent.”

We often think of Lenten penance as “giving something up for Lent.” Many of us learned that practice as kids and often from the sisters in our Catholic school. It remains an excellent part of Lent. That is why we abstain from meat on Fridays of Lent and are required to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Giving up something confronts us with the need to discipline our bodies and our wants and it redirects our thoughts to Christ.

But attendance at daily Mass during Lent adds another dimension to our practice of penance, of drawing closer to Christ. Of course, it involves discipline, especially if you haven’t been going to daily Mass already.

It might mean getting up a little earlier (if it’s a morning Mass) or readjusting some other part of your day just to make that time. And we can’t abandon the effort after a week or two, and after a good start. We need to stay with it until Holy Week. No small penance that!

But many people who attend Mass during Lent suddenly find a moment of quiet and pause. Imagine, less time shopping or in front of the television and more time given to prayer. They find that their spiritual lives are deepened just by that act of stepping out of the rat race of life for a time of quiet each day to pray and reflect.

Those reflections are helped by something else. That is the readings that are proposed for the Mass each day. Step by step, day by day, the readings guide our journey through Lent.

“Rend your hearts, not your garments” we are told on Ash Wednesday. “Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD” during the second week of Lent.

And then there are the Masses of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week when we walk with Jesus as the end comes near, worrying for him as we sense the growing tension.

Even for those who have regularly attended Mass during Lent in the past, each year the readings seem to come alive anew, different insights and different things that God speaks to the listening heart.

While going to Mass is a whole experience, the privilege of receiving Christ in the Eucharist is so central to that Lenten penance. In the Lenten narrative, we are preparing for the solemnity of Holy Thursday when Christ first gave to his Apostles his body and blood, and made them the first priests. We march along toward Good Friday when we will stand with Mary at the foot of the cross.

At those daily Masses, we become partakers in the table of the Last Supper. The Eucharist we receive unites us each day to the cross that we will kiss and venerate in just a few weeks’ time.

And then there are those traditional Lenten hymns. It is hard not to be moved by “Lord Who Throughout These Forty Days” and “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?”

If you can’t get to Mass regularly, why not at least set aside time daily and follow the readings? Read them slowly and give the Lord a little quiet time to speak to you. Then when you can get back to daily Mass, you can still be in that rhythm of prayer and reflection.

If I had to choose just one Lenten penance …