Thinking Faith: Thoughts for Ash Wednesday and resources for Lent
Thinking Faith today offers three timely reflections: On Not Giving Up Too Easily: Thoughts for Ash Wednesday; Keeping the Lenten Fast – thoughts from a dialogue with Islam; and The Virtue of Asceticism... We all choose to mark Lent in different ways and more often than not focus on abstaining from something we enjoy, but is this always good for us? Nicholas Austin SJ explores how our attempts at an ascetic way of life for 40 days each year can go wrong if our motivations are not rooted in the wisdom of the Christian tradition.
On Not Giving Up Too Easily: Thoughts for Ash Wednesday
If your thoughts as you prepare to begin Lent are of what you plan to give up and of how much you will suffer without chocolate or alcohol during the next six weeks, perhaps it is time to realign your approach to the season. Will your chosen Lenten observance help you to grow as you journey towards Easter, or will it suppress you? Philip Endean SJ wants to remind us that ‘this great season of grace’ is not a time for constriction: ‘Lent is only Christian if it is positive.’ See: www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20140304_1.htm
Keeping the Lenten Fast – thoughts from a dialogue with Islam
As the season of Lent begins, Michael Barnes SJ compares Christian and Muslim approaches to fasting, prayer and almsgiving, and considers what the two traditions might have to learn from each other. See: www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20080206_1.htm
The Virtue of Asceticism
Giving up chocolate? Deleting your Facebook account? We all choose to mark Lent in different ways and more often than not focus on abstaining from something we enjoy, but is this always good for us? Nicholas Austin SJ explores how our attempts at an ascetic way of life for forty days each year can go wrong if our motivations are not rooted in the wisdom of the Christian tradition. How can we rediscover the virtue of asceticism? See: www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20110308_1.htm