For us Catholics, Lent is a big deal. Ash Wednesday is right up there with Christmas and Easter as one of the most attended Masses of the year. But this year it will be different. Many of us won’t be able to attend Mass, and for those that do, many dioceses will distribute ashes by sprinkling them on our heads instead of the traditional forehead cross.
One thing, though, won’t be different: we will be called, as we are every year, to fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. Almost everyone focuses only on the first of these three: fasting. The question “What are you giving up for Lent?” will be the go-to for Catholics for the next week.
But what if we have the priorities all wrong? To quote St. Josemaría Escrivá: “First, prayer; then, atonement; in the third place — very much ‘in the third place’ — action.”
What if instead of asking “What are you giving up for Lent?” we should be asking “How are you praying this Lent?”
That’s the question we here at Hallow are asking, and in this article I’d like to suggest three easy steps you can take to help keep prayer at the center of your Lent.
1. You are dust and to dust you shall return
Approach prayer with humility. There is an amazing and incredibly challenging prayer that I’d highly recommend called the Litany of Humility. It’s one of the hardest prayers I’ve tried to pray. In it, we ask Jesus to deliver us from the desire of being esteemed, honored, loved, and for the grace to desire that others be chosen before us, that in the opinion of the world others may increase and we may decrease, and that others may be preferred to us in everything. Praying this prayer on Ash Wednesday helps set the tone for the hope of Lent: that we may humble ourselves, realize our need for God, and turn to Him in everything.
2. Let the savior of our Savior be our guide
Pope Francis has declared this year as the year of St. Joseph and I can’t think of a better saint to lead us through Lent than St. Joseph. We don’t know much about St. Joseph, but what we do know….well, I’ll let Blessed William Joseph Chaminade say it more eloquently than I can:
“To give life to someone is the greatest of all gifts. To save a life is the next. Who gave life to Jesus? It was Mary. Who saved his life? It was Joseph. Ask St. Paul who persecuted him. Saint Peter who denied him. Ask all the saints who put him to death. But if we ask, “Who saved his life?” Be silent, patriarchs, be silent, prophets, be silent, apostles, confessors and martyrs. Let St. Joseph speak, for this honor is his alone; he alone is the savior of his Savior.”
This Lent, let’s use St. Joseph as our guide and meditate on his virtues — his humility, his obedience, his righteousness, and his love for the troubled and dying — throughout the next 40 days.
3. Don’t give up your phone, use it to pray
I’m sure a lot of Catholics this year will try and give up some form of technology this Lent. Many of us (myself included) spend too much time on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Netflix. But maybe, instead of giving up our phones, we can sanctify them. Maybe instead of putting down our phones every time we reach for it, we could use them instead to pray. Maybe God can turn what is our biggest distraction from Him into a channel for Him to speak through.
That’s why we started Hallow. It’s a Catholic Meditation and Prayer app that leads you through different forms of contemplative and meditative prayer like the Rosary, Daily Gospel, Divine Mercy Chaplet, Examen, Gregorian Chant, Bible Stories, Christian Meditation, and more. We’re still a startup, just 2 years old, but the Hallow community has already reached over 5 million prayers completed and half a million downloads. The most humbling part of the journey, though, has been the impact that God has had on our members’ lives:
“I hate quoting an old, over-used cliche, but I’ve been very lost. And I think for the first time in a while I may be found.”
“Tears pour as I try to impress on you how deeply I am impacted by this app. This is where my soul is finding peace for the first time.”
This Lent we’re launching our biggest community prayer challenge ever: Lent #Pray40 with St. Joseph. 40 days. 40 prayers. That’s the challenge. We’ll kick off on Ash Wednesday (February 17th) with the Litany of Humility, and then meditate each week on a different virtue of St. Joseph. Every prayer is available in multiple lengths (usually 5, 10, & 15 minutes) to make sure you can always fit it into your schedule. We’ll also have chants, music, rosaries, daily gospels, and much more.
You can download the app to get started here.
I really hope you’ll join me and the 20,000+ other Hallow members around the world who have already joined the challenge.
God bless,
Alex J
CEO & Co-Founder at Hallow
