Beginning Lent
Like many others, Lent seems to have arrived a bit by surprise this year. As I wrote on the usual social media site, I have been looking for what discipline I was going to embrace for the next six weeks. I really wanted to avoid the "give up chocolate, television, trashy magazines " mentality which seems rife at this time of year, looking for something bait deeper and life-giving. The Spirit seems to have ideas for me however, as bed bound with a virus this weekend, I rediscovered two of my heroes - John Henry Newman , Cardinal and Anglo Catholic convert, and Mother Maria Skobtsova , Paris living, intellectual, mother, and Russian orthodox nun. So using this reading plan , and the Skobtsova page above, spiritual reading along with saying the office (morning prayer and compline with the family), and making an effort to be very good and kind this Lent, seems like the way.