On Wednesday Lent begins, and with it the call to three ancient spiritual disciplines: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. These are three ways to remit the temporal punishment due to sin, and are also good for us. As Sister Tamsin Mary Geach has written, “Fasting addresses our bodily passions, almsgiving addresses the tendency to put money or possessions or any other material good between ourselves and God, while prayer acknowledges our total dependency on God, and turns us away from the sin of pride.”
There are innumerable ways to practise all three. On prayer, perhaps the most important thing is to get into some definite routine of praying a certain amount each day. As for fasting, it can be anything from giving up chocolate, to talking less, to the traditional, harder disciplines of limiting oneself to bread and water on certain days. Fasting is worth discussing with a spiritual director or trusted adviser. For almsgiving, there is no shortage of opportunity: many, from the homeless to those who have never heard the Good News, are in need of bodily or spiritual support.
