Traveling with Reverence

As Easter approaches, our house is observing the Season of Lent. Every year this has looked a bit different and I came across a few ideas to combine into something new for our kids this year. I grew up in a very liturgical church and the rhythm of the Church seasons has become a part of my own yearly rhythm as I have deepened my relationship with God.

This year I have been reading books by John O'Donohue, an Irish poet and priest. In his book Beauty and Invisible Embrace, I came across this passage:

"When you regain a sense of you life as a journey of discovery, you return to rhythm with yourself. When you take time to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you. Moments of beauty begin to braid your days. When your mind becomes acquainted with reverence, the light, grace and elegance of beauty find you more frequently. When the destination becomes gracious, the journey becomes and adventure of beauty."

As I reflected on this passage and how to share the Lenten season with our children. I was reminded of how much more beautiful Easter was when I took the time to intentionally observe Lent. As our family regularly attends Church, it can be easy to slip into going through the motions. By being intentional about the preparation seasons, Advent and Lent, the casualness of going to church services is broken and something new emerges.

This year, in addition to attending the Lenten Bible Study at church, we will be adding in a daily family devotional time with a Lenten Wreath. Our children love the Advent wreath and devotional time we have in preparation for Christmas. The Lenten Wreath is the mirror of an Advent wreath. During Advent we added a purple candle each Sunday and a small beeswax taper candle each day.

For the Lenten wreath, we will start with 6 candles for each of the Sundays of Lent. Each Sunday, one less candle will be lit until we are in darkness for Easter Vigil. While I like the idea of having a candle for each day, Lent is much longer than Advent and 46 candles with a seven month old and a cat is a little to much. I thought about using the little led candles and it doesn't feel right. There is a different atmosphere when real candles are lit. Maybe in next year we will come up with a solution.

As a Protestant family it can be tricky finding devotionals that are not Catholic. We are grateful that those are out there for Catholic families, but they don't always fit for non Catholics. There are certain practices we don't use, such as the Stations of the Cross and food restrictions.

We found our devotional on the Bible app and it covers the different spiritual disciples. Faith Radio designed a 46 day plan called Lent: A Journey Through 7 Spiritual Disciplines. This will serve as a refresher for me, but it is new for our children. This way as they have more tools for enriching their own relationship with God. One of the lessons that is important for us to teach our children is that their relationship with God is the most important relationship they will have. We want to give them all the tools we can to develop that relationship on their own.

One of the most important lessons many people discovered during the last few years with the COVID outbreak and subsequent changes to everyday life, is that the most important relationship is with the Creator. As my husband says "the only thing to do was to get right with Jesus." Both of us have had life experiences that taught us this prior to 2020 and it's a lesson that is vital for us to teach our children.

Just like with our Advent Wreath, we have started with a "that will do for now" and over the next year we can gather the materials to make what I envision, a mix of a prayer labyrinth and Lenten candles. We may have to get a bit crafty this summer as I haven't been able to find what I want while shopping online.