According to good ol' Wikipedia: "Lent in the Christian tradition, is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. Lent is a time of sacrifice for Jesus. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ."
Now I may not be Catholic, but I do admire their process of preparation for Easter. I think it's something we could all learn from. A lot of the time Easter ends up sneaking up on us and then it's over; for some reason, we don't seem to give this important day nearly as much attention as it deserves. We spend months preparing for Christmas! On Easter we celebrate the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that is something worth thinking about before the actual day comes up. I think if anything this year I want to spend more time preparing and cleansing for this wonderful celebration. This year, I want to make it extra special, and maybe a spiritual spring cleaning is exactly what we need.
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| He is not Here by Walter Rane |
How do you prepare for Easter? Someday, in the not too distant future, we will have children and I want to make sure they understand the important of the Atonement. Easter is great for chocolate and eggs, but it's about so much more, and I hope that we will manage to teach them with the absolute importance of what the Savior did for them, and for all of us. Perhaps a good goal for these coming weeks would be to read "Jesus the Christ." I own it and have started it at various times, but maybe now is a perfect time to take it up seriously. And of course, spend less time on Facebook...
Are you observing Lent? (And yes, I realize it technically started yesterday, but better late than never)
We've done an Easter countdown for the last few years: http://beinglds.blogspot.com/search/label/Easter%20Countdown
ReplyDeleteAnd this year I'm doing a 30 day lead-up to Easter on my blog...and I want to do some crafting linked to some parables too.
Too much probably...I'll have to sort through what will have the greatest impact on my kids for the ages they are right now. I like giving things up for Lent, although I haven't committed just yet!