Wake up 20 minutes early and start the day in prayer.

Daily Mass 1-2 times a week.

An hour in Adoration a week.

Go to Confession.

Read Scripture daily.

Read a spiritual book.

Start to pray a daily Rosary.

Pray the Liturgy of the hours.

Stations of the Cross on Fridays.

Pray a Divine Mercy Chaplet.

Pray for your enemies.

Do an extra spiritual activity at Church

Memorize Scripture verses.

Start tithing.

Make a pledge to a worthy charity.

When you fast from a meal, give the money you would spend to the poor.

Volunteer with St. Vincent de Paul or another charitable organization.

Visit a nursing home.

Forgive an old grudge.

Invite someone to Church.

Share your faith with someone.

Exercise patience and love.

Speak in a pleasant tone to everyone.

Go out of your way to talk to someone who is shy or difficult.

Fast on bread and water on Fridays.

Fast from TV or streaming content.

Fast from snacking or candy.

Fast from music in your car.

Fast from caffeine.

Fast from alcohol.

Fast from Instagram, TikTok, and/or the internet.

Fast from speeding.

Fast from sarcasm or gossip.

Fast from complaining.

Fast from being lazy or procrastinating.

Fast from envying what others have.

While we are not required to “give something up” we are required to do something penitential. Lent is a great time to break a bad habit and give it to the Lord. These sins and vices we should not take back after Lent. It is also a time to give something up that is good during this season. This is why people give up something they enjoy. In doing so we can draw closer to God by our temporary sacrifice. We should find an appropriate balance of giving something up and not completely cutting ourselves off of good things. We will find our need for God if we do it correctly.

Again, this is because we are called to by Jesus. By denying ourselves something good, we remember what the highest good of all is – GOD. We also practice self-discipline and self-mastery, which we need in order to achieve holiness. Jesus fasted in the desert and calls us to as well.

“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.” (Matt 6: 16)

“and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer.” (Luke 2:37)

Fasting also helps focus us in our prayer. *Yet when they were ill, I…humbled myself with fasting.” (Psalm 35:13)

All Catholics from 14 and up are required to abstain from meat on Fridays in Lent. On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, Catholics 18-60 are required to eat only one average meal and two snacks without anything else. Children, the elderly, and those who are sick are not obligated to do this. Because of the spiritual discipline it provides. “In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia . . . ‘I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks. I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips, and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over.'” (Dan 10:1-3) We give up meat, which still today is a luxury in some parts of the world, as a good thing that we offer up in order to remember that Christ is better than food and needed more by all of us than anything else.