From today Ash Wednesday, thousands of people will be beginning an on-line journey through Lent with http://www.cilent.ie/.This is the third year http://www.catholicireland.net/ have been running the online Lenten pilgrimage which suggests practical ways for people to transform their lives, and deepen their union with God.
The programme is based around four elements: think, pray, act and transform. The ‘Think’ part provides homilies on the Sunday readings as well as teaching about Lent and the Easter Triduum.
‘Pray’ provides daily family prayer, a pictorial meditation, a live video link to the Redemptorist Monastery in Clonard in Belfast for daily Mass, and gives people the opportunity to post their own ‘prayer requests’ for which the Benedictine Monks in Rostrevor will pray each day.
The ‘Act’ element suggests a daily deed (which a person might do at home), a parish deed, an eco deed and a deed to help the wider world, with suggestions provided by Trócaire.
The eco deeds are a new feature this year, and encompass such diverse suggestions as buying organic food, planting your own vegetables and never saying it with flowers!
Paddy Duffy, editor with http://www.catholicireland.net/, explains that the anti-flower bias is because many of the flowers are produced in developing countries using huge amounts of herbicides and pesticides and are “disposed of in a few short days”.
A water ‘eco deed’ reminds people that “water is a gift of God. More than one million people do not have access to clean, drinkable water.”
Ash Wednesday’s ‘eco deed’ invites people to turn down the central heating thermostat in their homes by a degree.
The ‘Transform’ part suggests ways of working together in the parish community and gives thoughts on being reconciled with God and each other. It recommends that people go to Confession over Lent, or attend a communal reconciliation service.
Another new feature of http://www.cilent.ie/ this year is a daily newsletter which people can sign up to. This will enable them to receive a daily email with the personal deed, parish deed, eco deed, prayer and a pictorial thought for the day.
The material on http://www.cilent.ie/, has been produced by a team including representatives from diocesan education advisors, the Office of Pastoral Renewal and Faith Development, Trócaire and other agencies.
Through the site, or through http://www.churchservices.tv/, people can follow Masses in Clonard Monastery at the following times: 7.30pm Saturday (vigil Mass), Sundays at 7am, 9.30am, 11.00am and 12.30pm and on weekdays at 7am, 9.30am and 6.15pm.
Meanwhile in Britain as the revolutionary daily prayer initiative from the Jesuits - pray-as-you-go – celebrates its first anniversary today, commuters are being urged to use the opportunity of Lent to refresh their prayer lives.
Over the past year, 1.4 million prayer sessions have been downloaded from the pray-as-you-go web site, providing a chance for people all over the world to spend 10 minutes in quiet reflection on their way to or from work, or wherever they manage to withdraw briefly from the noise and pressure of their daily lives.
Peter Scally SJ, the Jesuit behind pray-as-you-go, who has a long association with the Irish Jesuit Communication Centre, said that if people want to do something special this Lent, pray-as-you-go might be just what they need.
"Traditionally, people used to give up something for Lent as a sign of penance, in preparation for Holy Week and Easter, but in recent years, doing something positive has been considered an alternative activity for Lent. We launched pray-as-you-go on Ash Wednesday last year - the first day of Lent - and it immediately attracted people from all over the world who started using it as a way to inject a few minutes' contemplation and prayer, with Bible readings and music, in a non-preachy format, into their busy lives. We very much hope that Lent will be an opportunity for many others to do the same this year."
To find out more about pray-as-you-go, visit http://www.pray-as-you-go.org/
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