Lent So Far: When You Fall Pick Yourself Up

Like most Catholics I try to give up or do something for Lent.  When I was young it was always something like giving up candy.  Now I understand that what I’m supposed to do isn’t just give up something, but instead do something that will make me grow closer to God.

Now I;m not the best Catholic in the world, but I’m a lot better than I used to be.  A few years back I was faced with a decision to stay with a woman that I loved dearly and was sure to marry or to stay with my Catholic  faith.  Interestingly enough this decision fell during the season of Lent, so I decided to attend mass daily during the season.  The experience of receiving the Eucharist daily changed my life.  I quickly returned to the sacrament confession, started praying a little more regularly, and eventually decided to make the most difficult decision of my life and stay with the faith.

Over the past two Lenten seasons I’ve made resolutions that will help me grow closer to God, but I don’t always succeed.  This year I’m doing horribly.

A little background: Over the past year I’ve become a lot busier in my personal, professional, and volunteer life.  Sadly I’ve abandoned daily mass telling myself that “I’m too busy”, the next brick in my faith life to fall was the LOTH, then confession, and finally, as horrible as it sounds, I hadn’t even been taking time to pray daily.

Sensing a need for a faith tune-up I’ve tried to reincorporate all of these elements into my faith life.  It hasn’t been easy.  I’m really doing quite poorly in all actuality.  Getting up for daily mass has been my biggest stumbling block.  I’ve been very streaky; going to mass for a week and them missing several days in a row.  Like my life over the past six months I find that when I miss mass I also fail to pray the breviary and often times pray a rosary.

So the question before me is: Since I’ve fallen so many should I write this Lent off as a failure?  No, Lent is a time of spiritual preparation for the holiest feast of the year.  If we fall we should pick ourselves back up, dust ourselves off and try again.  Lent isn’t an all or nothing endeavor.  The goal of perpetration isn’t to be perfect right from the start as long as we’ve made progress towards sainthood along the way then we have done well.

If you are like me than you have failed in your Lenten promise.  So why don’t we help each other up, encourage each other, and try harder tomorrow.   Even though we’ve fallen we can still make it to the finish line with pride.