{"id":11967,"date":"2016-02-18T15:17:32","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T20:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=11967"},"modified":"2016-02-18T15:33:51","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T20:33:51","slug":"letting-go-of-the-goal-of-a-hardcore-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2016\/02\/letting-go-of-the-goal-of-a-hardcore-lent.html","title":{"rendered":"Letting Go of the Goal of a Hardcore Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

(best pic I could think of to illustrate \"hardcore\")<\/a>
(best pic I could think of to illustrate \u201chardcore\u201d)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

I\u2019m at Aleteia today to talk about picking small sacrifices for Lent<\/a>, and staying open to unplanned, unanticipated disciplines (all of which is hard for me as a big scheduler and organizer!). \u00a0Here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/p>\n

\n

I wanted to find something to give up, or some rule to follow, because as a (still fairly new!) convert, I can have a tendency to feel somewhat unsettled in the faith. Sometimes it\u2019s a long stretch from Sunday to Sunday, and even though I\u2019m keeping up with some daily prayers, it feels more like I\u2019m being Catholic on the side, like I\u2019m not really inviting God into the whole of my life.<\/p>\n

In truth, I wasn\u2019t attracted to Fr. Schmemann\u2019s prescriptions because I thought they stood a good chance of opening my whole day to Christ; I liked them because they were a little extreme and a lot emphatic. They felt like they might be\u00a0enough<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Trying to make sure I\u2019ve done my duty by God is, of course, the opposite of cultivating openness to him and what he might ask of me. For me, seeking out an aggressive prayer rule is usually a way of compartmentalizing my spiritual life, reducing it to something I can accomplish every day, in the same way I check off my daily French practice or anything else on my to-do list.<\/p>\n

Read more at Aleteia\u2026<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And I know that I\u2019m talking about taking the wrong lessons from\u00a0The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann, 1973-1983<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>in this essay, but the actual collection has a lot I found fruitful to meditate on. \u00a0(And, I mean, making a mistake\u00a0and noticing it<\/em> also counts as fruitful). \u00a0But I\u2019m not sure if I should have made it the first thing I read by Schmemann. \u00a0I\u2019ve heard wonderful things about\u00a0Great Lent: Journey to Pascha<\/em><\/a> from my friends.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>

Update: A friend who\u2019s actually read several Schmemann books says the one he\u2019d recommend first to Catholics is:\u00a0For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m at Aleteia today to talk about picking small sacrifices for Lent, and staying open to unplanned, unanticipated disciplines (all of which is hard for me as a big scheduler and organizer!). \u00a0Here\u2019s an excerpt: I wanted to find something to give up, or some rule to follow, because as a (still fairly new!) convert, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":11969,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[77],"class_list":["post-11967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spiritual-practice","tag-lent"],"yoast_head":"\nLetting Go of the Goal of a Hardcore Lent<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I'm at Aleteia today to talk about picking small sacrifices for Lent, and staying open to unplanned, unanticipated disciplines (all of which is hard for\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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