It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that we are now immersed in the season of Lent. Just listen to the conversations going on among Catholic folks: “I gave up coffee for Lent.”   “Oh no thanks, I gave it up for Lent.”  “No chocolate for me, it’s Lent.”  “What did you give up for Lent?”   

Lent, at times, sure can seem to be the season of “giving things up.” But in Bishop Mark’s Ash Wednesday homily, which I found extremely insightful, inspiring, and profoundly powerful, he encouraged us to go further. He “dared” us to take the journey further this Lent; to go further than just giving up salty snacks, or coffee, or whatever.

So being moved by such a challenging dare from Bishop Mark, I dare to give up blogging (Celeste, our Cathedral blog coordinator, will not be overly impressed with me) and to use that time to nurture and exercise my spiritual side a wee bit more. Spiritual exercise is as important as physical exercise. It is always good to continue to build and strengthen our relationship with our God; and build and strengthen our souls. So just like going to the gym to build and strengthen our physical being, we need to find the carrot sticks and the hour at the gym for our soul as well.

Since I have given up blogging for Lent (sorry Celeste, hee hee) I will take the opportunity of Lent to exercise my soul a wee bit more. And since this turned out to be a brief blog (almost giving up blogging), you too can take those couple of minutes that you would have spent reading the blog to go about your own Lenten spiritual exercise. Happy Lenting.