A few years ago, my wife and I got creative with our Lenten sacrifices. It was an idea I had, loosely based on a Holy Week retreat I once went on when I was an undergraduate. The idea is simple, but that’s what makes it so awesome.
Many people enter Lent rather blindsided (it creeps up on us every year, doesn’t it!?) and struggle to find a good way to get something out of the season. One thing that can derail your Lent for sure is if you either decide to do way too much (pray the entire Liturgy of the Hours, go to daily Mass, confession every week, watch nothing but EWTN and read nothing but Catholic books) or way too little (maybe…giving up one candy or soda or something and just leaving it at that). Another problem a lot of people face during Lent, even if they pick good and reasonable sacrifices, is that it’s hard to keep up one new habit for the entire stretch.
So what we’re doing this year is picking a list of several sacrifices and/or additional virtues that we want to work on. For no real reason, we put eight items on our list. My wife and I each have our own list, and then there’s a list of ones for the whole family.
Each morning, one of our kids will spin the wheel of Lent (the name’s a work-in-progress). Whatever family sacrifice it lands on is numbered, so then mom and dad will refer to our own individual lists and we’ll see what the kids dealt us. Here’s a picture of the lists and our wheel of Lent:
So if your Lent maybe hasn’t gotten off the ground too well, or if you want to get your kids more involved, give this idea a try. It’s been great for us so far!
1 thought on “How My Family Keeps Lent Interesting”
This is such a cool idea!