WDTPRS POLL: How is your Lent going so far? Part I

Lent is a preparatory time of penance in introspection, involving fasting, good works, and confession.

How is your Lent going so far?

Pick the answer closest to your situation.

If you care to make a comment in the combox, please do.  Everyone, be respectful of the choices and experiences other people have shared.

How is your Lent so far?

  • Okay. However, I have fallen down in what I planned, but started again. (38%, 868 Votes)
  • Very well. I have stuck to my project. I will stick to what I am doing. (27%, 612 Votes)
  • Not great. I have not stuck to what I planned to do and am discouraged. (16%, 375 Votes)
  • Very well. I have stuck to my project. I am ready to add more. (8%, 191 Votes)
  • I didn't have a plan at the beginning, but I did start something. (5%, 111 Votes)
  • I didn't have a plan but I will start doing something now. (2%, 52 Votes)
  • I didn't have a plan, and won't do anything for Lent. (2%, 45 Votes)
  • What's Lent? (1%, 21 Votes)

Total Voters: 2,276

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About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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27 Comments

  1. Charivari Rob says:

    Well, survey choices haven’t popped up yet.

    Lent is going okay thus far. I’ve managed to keep up with my planned “something to give up”.

    My work circumstances have changed from previous years, so I haven’t been able to get to daily Mass as much as I had hoped.

  2. Charivari Rob says:

    There’s the survey now. Quick fix, Father Z., thank you.

  3. ejcmartin says:

    A slow start (pardon the pun) as I was very sick with the flu. The plan is in place now and I fall occasionally, but I get up.

  4. Jenny bag of donuts says:

    I’m nursing so I’m exempt from fasting, yeah baby! Raising five little kiddos involves enough opportunities for interior penance in and of itself.

  5. I keep falling down but I won’t give up. I actually have changed my plan from what I’d originally decided, because once Lent started the Lord seemed to have different plans for me.

  6. marthawrites says:

    From Day One, Ash Wednesday, I was able to add to my original plan for Lenten practices. What I added has not been difficult to maintain but something that was part of my original list has turned out to be hard, and that is an eye opener.

  7. JoyfulMom7 says:

    Part of my Lenten plans involved daily Mass and weekly Stations of the Cross. Due to sick children, that did not happen this week . . . but there is always next week. :-)

  8. Brooklyn says:

    I’ve kept up with some things and not with others, kind of like the way I live my life the rest of the year. But everyday of Lent is a new beginning, and my target is to have it all in place by Holy Week.

  9. Childermass says:

    I got off to a bad start this Lent. It seems to happen every year. I hope to have everything together by the end! Truly, Lent is a spiritual battle.

    Today I was blessed to worship this morning at a cathedral parish of the Anglican Church in America. They are Ordinariate-bound. (I’m heading to Catholic Mass later today.) Such a blessing to have such good soldiers joining us in the fight!

  10. lubeltri says:

    I got off to a bad start this Lent. It seems to happen every year. I hope to have everything together by the end! Truly, Lent is a spiritual battle.

    Today I was blessed to worship this morning at a cathedral parish of the Anglican Church in America. They are Ordinariate-bound. (I’m heading to Catholic Mass later today.) Such a blessing to have such good soldiers joining us in the fight!

  11. dymh says:

    Father,
    I had fallen away from my spiritual life in serious ways since Lent two years ago. However, your essays on the Collects and LentCazts led to my doing as God intended and seriously begin fasting and participating in the Divine Office. Also, at the start of Lent our parish had a forty hour Eucharistic Adoration for the first time, and our wonderful parish priest has become receptive to concerns raised by the Holy Father regarding the proper understanding of the Liturgical reforms. All of this has led to a powerful experience of Lent this year.

  12. ladykathryn says:

    My Lent never goes as planned! This year it started early with a backed up sump pump and 8 inches of water in the basement. My things to give-up now include home-school records, record albums, toddler books that I was saving for the “someday” grandchildren, clothing and my daughter’s sewing supplies. So the virtues I am now working on are acceptance of God’s will for my life and an appreciation for simplicity. It brings to mind the saying: If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.

  13. Gail F says:

    Very well so far. I have not kept up with everything as I had hoped, but this year it has not made me discouraged and I feel much more in tune with Lent spiritually, if not as good as expressing it bodily as I would like. It is a blessing!

  14. APX says:

    I had one little accidental slip up yesterday with abstaining from meat all of lent when I forgot what I was eating had meat in it. I’m also at my wits end for going to confession (which I’ce been trying to do since before Lent started) and actually getting to confess. I had another two failed attempt this weekend. My city/diocese needs more confession times, particularly not during the day. Driving all over the diocese trying to beat the saturday line ups is getting frustrating and expensive.

    Other than that Lent is goIng great. In my attempt to get to confession this weekend I made it to a city offering EF Mass, which was nice.

  15. friarpark says:

    My biggest problem is the discouragement I feel that I cannot get my pastor to do what is right in the liturgy. I thought we were making progress when we replaced the glass bowls with gold ones, but now he wants to go ‘simpler’ for Lent and has found a glass chalice in storage and is using that for Mass. Adding that to an improper form of blessing at the end of Mass and all the usual abuses that this parish has been doing for over 40 years is getting to me. We went to Mass in another city today where they do what is right at Mass.

  16. david andrew says:

    Although I didn’t go into Lent with a carefully thought out plan, that’s not to say that I haven’t done anything productive. I’ve begun undertaking a reading of selections from Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman’s Parochial and Plain sermons, have made several visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and am resolved to begin offering Rosaries for Fr. Corapi.

    It is interesting that I’ve noticed an even more aggressive presence of evil influences in my life this Lent. I must be doing something right, otherwise the Evil One wouldn’t care, now would he?

  17. Nora says:

    Please pray for me, as well as for others battling through Lent. One aspect of my Lenten devotion this year involves something I have always counseled others against, but seemed compellingly necessary to me this season. I have failed twice, but managed not to despair, but instead start again with renewed humility at my need for grace. Lent is my favorite season, even though it is so incredibly hard. The consolations at Easter have always been there after a really good Lent, even in the years that consolations are otherwise scarce or absent.

  18. Lirioroja says:

    Aside from the usual things I abstain from every year, I try to do something to improve my spiritual life. This year I couldn’t think of anything so I asked God to show me what I needed to do. That’s a very dangerous thing to do because He always delivers. And I don’t always like what I get. This time is no different. Some excruciating soul-searching and spiritual exercises (unplanned by me) are before me. I don’t want this but to refuse is to choose death. And it might not end when Lent does. *Sigh* If this makes me into the woman God wants me to be than it’s all good. The cuts of the surgeon’s knife hurt but they also bring healing. I’ll take that. As for the things I’m abstaining from, that’s been too easy so no wonder God is being tough on me.

  19. mvhcpa says:

    This is the first year in a long time I determined something to give up that actual represented a real sacrifice to me (something insignificant to most folks but a real sacrifice to me). I have been very diligent in maintaining that sacrifice, but I have started to REALLY resent it, which I feel is NOT the proper spirit to offer. I hope God accepts my puny offering, even if I am not properly grateful in the making of it (perhaps that is just part of the spiritual process and the gratefulness in sacrifice will, with grace, come later).

  20. Mac in Alberta says:

    OK, I had a plan but God seems to have changed it to something else. At least I hope that was God’s changes.

  21. Dr. Eric says:

    This Lent I decided to follow the Byzantine fasting rules for Wednesdays and Fridays. It is tough to give up meat and dairy, giving up fish is easy because it makes me gag. But the abstinence from dairy is hard to do. I can’t even have cereal or a grilled cheese sandwich or cheese on my salad. I will get through it, but I don’t know how the Greeks can do it 130 days out of the year.

  22. PghCath says:

    So far, I’ve stuck to what I planned: abstinence and Stations each Friday, weekday Mass at least once a week, and lots of spiritual reading (I’m on Exodus in the Navarre Bible and just ordered the other books in the OT set).

    I love to eat, so I’m going to try to add one day of fasting per week.

  23. green fiddler says:

    Our Lord is shielding me from temptation because I’ve hardly thought about my
    creature-comfort given up for Lent. In other years there was much more struggle.
    Making rosaries for our troops and rosaries for the missions is good activity during Lent and every season.

    My plan for spiritual reading hit a snag. Two good books were chosen, each having
    a daily Scripture passage and short meditation /goal. But an unexpected challenge
    disrupted the schedule; now I’m several days behind and trying not to scurry.
    God’s grace will get me back on track. No time to be discouraged.

    Fr. Z.’s daily podcasts are very helpful! I’m grateful for all the insights and
    encouragement found in these pages. God bless everyone during this holy season.

  24. gkeuter says:

    I prayed a lot about what to do this year as in years past I have given up this or that only to ravenously resume following Easter (to the point of gluttony I would say). The inspiration that came to me this year was from psalm 51, ” For you do not desire sacrifice; a burnt offering you would not accept.” I realized I was sacrificing just for the sake of sacrifice and “rules” and not out of a sincere desire to give back to God. I felt I needed to find a true humility before God so this year I am praying Psalm 51 every day and the Stations of the Cross on Fridays.

    I have felt affirmed in my choice on several occasions since Ash Wednesday. I am praying for what I can add as the season progresses but the plan is to be open for what God asks of me, not to give something up so I have an answer when I am asked what I gave up for Lent.

    “My sacrifice, god, is a broken spirit; God, do not spurn a broken, humbled heart. Psalm 51:19

    Blessed Lent to all.

  25. irishgirl says:

    I’m doing a little better this Lent than in the past. I try not to eat anything between meals during the week. I try to offer the aches and pains in my body in union with Our Lord’s suffering in His Passion.
    On the spiritual side I’m going to Adoration daily, then at night before getting ready for bed I’m reading a ‘psalm a day’ from a really cool book I bought a few years ago that was published by the Confraternity of the Precious Blood.
    On Friday I make the Stations of the Cross at a lovely church in a small college town whose library I visit. This is the first time I’m doing the Stations ‘on my own’.
    My daily Rosary is a ‘given’.
    I state these things simply-I don’t want to sound like the Pharisee in the parable.

  26. So far so good, though this Lent has indeed been more challenging than past Lents. Through the grace of God, I will persevere for His glory and the salvation of souls.

  27. catholictigerfan says:

    one of my projects I guess you call it that is going very sucessful I am on a board that I post on way to much and since ash wednesday I have yet to post one message on that message board, its nice to have it out of my life for now helps me to pay better attention in class (yes it was a problem for me)

    I’m trying to increase my prayer life it is still a work in process.

    Probably my biggest project of lent is applying for seminary if I feel this is what God wants me to do, right now it is yes, I plan to start this soon.

    Also starting to try to eat less, I should be getting a blood test back soon and I suspect my cholesterol will be slightly to high so eating less and healtier will do this and I will spend less a week and maybe take some of that saved money and donate it or take that time in prayer maybe 1 dollar saved = 5 minuets in prayer. Haven’t done this

    so if I could rate my lent so far it would be very successful with my big things but some things I wish I could be doing better.

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