Chaplain - Fr Peter Audu
What is Lent?
- Much talk about it, even Children want to observe it
- Season comes once a year when our minds and thoughts are directed towards God
- At the beginning: go for ashes; what day is that?
- A time we acknowledge the wrong things we do and offer them up
- Time to return to God
- What are some of the wrong things one can do or we do?
How do we observe it?
- During Lent we do penance: spiritual activities to help us build relationship with God
- Various ways of penance: Prayer, Fasting, Almsgiving
What is fasting?
- Fasting is opportunity to give up something: what are you giving up? What is it?
- Resolutions by people (media fast – replace dps, FB, Skype, putting up messages as “off FB for lent”; other resolutions are to give up chocolate, games, toys, racing cars, going to McDonalds, watching TVs at hours.
- What do you do when you give up those things?
- Replace it with something spiritual that will make you grow in spirit
- Replace with what will help us develop and grow, to help our family, our school community and our friends
What fasting is not?
- You give up those things and yet continue with our attitude towards others
Why do we fast?
- God ask us to fast
- Appreciate our weakness
- Appreciate the condition of others
- Give time to God: master our evil ways
- The point of fasting is to help us think of our sinfulness: how we have offended God, mum and dad, our teachers, our friends and lead us to apologise
- Return to God
What to do when we fast?
- We return to God. How? Through constant prayer
- Rend your heart not your garment: make confession; apologise to people and change
- Do good to others always: help less privileged people
Requirement
- Contrition: to change your mind, think about God and be truly sorry (Joel 2:13)
- Confession: admit one’s wrong doing, forsake them and make confession
- Conduct: some never see anything wrong with their actions: