Editorial

Many of us think of Lent as the season for "giving up" something. When we were growing up, we usually gave up candy. I wasn't much of a candy eater anyway, so it wasn't that great a sacrifice! We gave up eating meat on Friday - also not much of a sacrifice for someone like me who enjoys fish.

In more recent years, the Catholic Church has emphasized that Lent is more than a season of "giving up." Of course, fasting and other penitential practices are still part of the Lenten season. But we are encouraged to give up things that mean something to us and take positive actions.

Prayer, fasting, almsgiving. Lent is a time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Spending more time in prayer is perhaps the most important aspect of this season. Attending Mass more frequently (daily if possible), making Stations of the Cross, spending time in Eucharistic Adoration, participation in a small Christian community or Bible study, and private prayer are all ways to deepen our prayer life.

We have minimal fasting and abstinence required on Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent. But how about going beyond the minimum? One way is to participate in Operation Rice Bowl, the Lenten solidarity program sponsored by Catholic Relief Services (go to www.crs.org/orb for more information). Operation Rice Bowl provides recipes for simple meals and fasting suggestions to express solidarity with our brothers and sisters who don't have enough food.

Those participating in Operation Rice Bowl can actually use a bowl or cardboard facsimile to save the money they might have spent on more extravagant meals. That money is contributed to Catholic Relief Services projects around the world and to diocesan projects. In the Diocese of Madison, the Office for Justice and Pastoral Outreach and Catholic Charities are collaborating on a mobile food pantry to help feed the hungry in our own communities (see Page 20 for more information on this project [online here]).

Another suggestion for Lent is to give up some or all of your television viewing. Use the time you usually spend in front of the TV for prayer, spiritual reading, or doing some service to others.

Helping those in need. Helping those in need is especially important. In his Lenten message, Pope Benedict XVI said Lent is a time to learn how to see others with the eyes of Christ and to express his compassion for the poor. "In the face of the terrible challenge of poverty afflicting so much of the world's population, indifference and self-centered isolation stand in stark contrast to the gaze of Christ," he said in his message.

What we do can make a difference. Our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving provide us the opportunity to put our faith into action and help people in our country and throughout the world. By praying for the needs of the poor and hungry, by fasting and offering other penitential acts, and by participating in programs such as Operation Rice Bowl, we can bring Christ's love to the world.

Please consider what you can do this Lent to make a difference as Christ's hands and feet in the world today.

Mary C. Uhler

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Declaration supports right to life

To the editor:

Many years ago a document called the Declaration of Independence was written. Inside this document was a small passage which states: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

How can we claim to be a nation built on the notion of justice when we deny the opportunity for life to the unborn? How can we claim to be a nation proclaiming the benefits of democracy, when our very system is so flawed that it says it's okay to kill the unborn? When did "we the people" get the opportunity to vote on making abortion legal? When did we the people, not the courts, decide that life did not begin at conception?

The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing, direct murder by the mother herself and some who cooperate with her. Each of us is so precious to our Creator, a Creator who has carved each of our names on His hand from the beginning of time. Yes, the names of the unborn are also carved on His hand.

Jim Holden, Watertown