Lent Archives - A.J. Cattapan | Stories with Heart & Hope

Random Acts of Mercy–a Lenten Reflection

February 15, 2016/1 Comment/in Lent/by AJ Cattapan

This year, I was once again asked by my parish to write a couple reflections for our Lenten reflection book. Here’s my first entry for this year. It’s based on Matthew 25:31-46.

Every year, instead of making a New Year’s resolution, I choose a “word of the year,” something to focus on during the coming months. This year I’ve taken a cue from Pope Francis and chosen the word mercy. Perhaps that is why today’s Gospel reading resonates with me so much. Within this passage, we see Jesus extolling many of the corporal works of mercy: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and imprisoned.

Sometimes these acts of mercy are easy for me. As a Dame of the Order of Malta, I serve meals at Catholic Charities and visit nursing homes. With my friends, we pack food boxes at Feed My Starving Children. The times that are hard for me to be merciful are the “sudden” moments when I encounter a homeless person on the street. So this year, I’m going to try being merciful in a new way. I’m going to carry around with me a few gift cards to grocery stores or fast food chains that I can hand out to people I meet on the street. In what ways can you practice “random acts of mercy” this Lent?

A Lenten Instagram challenge!

February 4, 2016/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by AJ Cattapan

As some of you know, a few of my fellow YA authors from the Catholic Writers Guild have banded together to form a group on Facebook. You can find us here if you want to learn more about Books for Catholic Teens. We also have a Pinterest board and an Instagram account.

If you’re on Instagram, join us for a fun Lenten daily challenge. Every day in Lent, we’ll be posting pics based on the theme for the day. For example, on Ash Wednesday, we’ll be posting pictures of our ashes. The next day we’ll share pics of whatever we hope to read for Lent and so on.

If you want to participate, start by sharing the following pic on Instagram. Use the hashtags #Lent2016 and #Lentathon. Tag @books_for_Catholic_teens and we’ll follow you back. Then each day post your pic for that day’s theme!

Lenten Reflection and an Unexpected Rant about Confession

March 3, 2015/0 Comments/in Lent/by AJ Cattapan

Here’s another of those Lenten Reflections I wrote for my church’s prayer book, followed up by a bit of a Lenten/Confession Rant.

Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent – March 3

Isaiah 1:10, 16-20

“Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow.” Maybe it’s because I’m an English teacher, but this line always reminds me of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter. Sometimes I feel like my sins are a big red letter that I’m wearing around for everyone to see. That, somehow, everyone will know the horrible things I’ve done and shun me for them. That’s when lines like this in Scripture comfort me. What a gift we have in the Sacrament of Reconciliation! I don’t have to wear my sins on me like some scarlet letter. God forgives me, and He’ll make my “crimson” sins “become white as wool.”

An old friend recently requested advice about going to confession because she hadn’t been in many years. My advice? Go! Don’t be afraid! Simply tell the priest how long it’s been, and he’ll guide you from there. I’m sure helping us realize God’s infinite compassion and mercy must be one of the most gratifying aspects of a priest’s vocation.

***

So after I wrote and submitted this to my church, several interesting things happened that have me ranting a little. First, one of my neighborhood churches has decided to cut back their confession times from every Saturday to every other Saturday, and they’ve moved it from a reasonable hour on Saturday mornings to 8:00-9:00 a.m. Who except the holiest among us are going to get up that early for confession? And what happened to Pope Francis’s request to have *more* confession time so that more people would come?

Then I found another neighborhood church that only offers it for a half-hour a week. What? A half hour?

Then a friend, who hadn’t been to confession in a long time (not the same friend mentioned in the passage) told me she went and had a horrible experience. The priest made her feel like she was judged instead of forgiven, and now she probably won’t go again for a really long time! This is all in direct contradiction to Pope Francis’s request to priests.

I swear, poor Papa Francesco must be banging his head against the walls some days.

On the bright side, I had a mostly positive confession experience myself this weekend. Archbishop Cupich decided to start a “Festival of Forgiveness,” during which churches would stay open for 24 hours for confession. (Yay!) Now this is more in line with Pope Francis’s requests. However, only a handful of churches participated. (Boooo!) I headed off to one during the last hour of the Festival. The line was 25 people along, and there was only one priest who was taking 7-8 minutes per person. (More booing.) Thankfully, a second priest arrived and started a second line. (Yay!) He wasn’t a priest I knew, but he talked with me for a little while and gave me a simple prayer to say when I ask God for forgiveness: “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.” Simple. I like it. 🙂 Now if only all priests could be good confessors.

Lenten Reflection for Thursday, February 19, 2015

February 19, 2015/1 Comment/in Lent/by AJ Cattapan

My parish puts out a daily Lenten reflection booklet with passages meant to help us ponder the day’s readings. This year I wrote three of the reflections. Here’s my first one. It’s based on Luke 9:22-25.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Well, who on earth wants to take up a cross? They’re heavy, cumbersome, and painful. They slow down our progress on the path we want to take, but perhaps that’s the very point. I have all sorts of plans, but God keeps sending me these crosses–unwelcome illnesses, sudden requests for help from friends and family, added expectations at work—that keep getting in the way of what I want to accomplish.

And that’s when I’m forced to remember the first part of Jesus’s directive. If I’m going to follow Him, I first need to deny myself. As the band Mercy Me sings in their song “So Long Self,” I have to say good-bye to me: “Well, it’s been fun, but I have found somebody else.” That somebody else, of course, is Jesus. And if I really want to follow Him, I have to keep “turning outward” as Pope Francis has been reminding us to do: to deny myself, to turn toward others, and to pick up whatever cross God asks me to bear today.

* * *

The reflection booklet obviously doesn’t include video, but that doesn’t mean I can’t include video in my blog post version! Here’s the video from the song I mentioned by Mercy Me. It’s kind of a silly spoof on the idea of saying good-bye to yourself, but I still really like it.

Got any other great songs that put you in the mood for Lent?

Tag Archive for: Lent

Random Acts of Mercy–a Lenten Reflection

A Lenten Instagram challenge!

Lenten Reflection and an Unexpected Rant about Confession

Lenten Reflection for Thursday, February 19, 2015

My parish puts out a daily Lenten reflection booklet with passages meant to help us ponder the day’s readings. This year I wrote three of the reflections. Here’s my first one. It’s based on Luke 9:22-25.

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