Catholic Activity: Time for God

Reflection on making adequate time for God during Lent.

DIRECTIONS

In seed time the sluggard plows not; when he looks for the harvest it is not there (Proverbs 20:4).

This Lent make time for God. Adequate time. Ordinarily we assign only minutes a day to him. He knocks at the door of our hearts. Like the inhospitable inns of Bethlehem we seemingly have no welcome. If we let God in, we crowd him into a corner. Yet we need him so badly in every area of life.

It is difficult to find time for family Lenten renewal. Father works overtime and comes home exhausted. Or he has a pressing evening meeting to attend. Mother is exhausted; the children cranky.

Frequently mothers work outside their homes. Finding ten or fifteen minutes a day for Lenten projects or prayer with the family seems an impossibility. I worked when our children were small — and remember. But somehow living the Church Year remained paramount. My mother, fretting over Lenten activities, would say, "How can you cut out Biblical mobiles when your closets look so? And it's almost Easter!" The closet may have been hastily tidied later. Those precious minutes spent with the children are theirs for time and eternity.

Mothers go out to work because they have to as a rule. In certain professions some have time for children and home. A few work to escape.

Mother is happy turning a crank That increases the money in somebody's bank; And I feel satisfaction that mother is free From the sinister task of attending to me.

— G. K. Chesterton, Song for a Crèche

Still others work to give their children "every advantage." A secular writer recently passed judgment on the children now "emerging from school, church, and the station wagon." For him "they face us eloquent with the tormenting discontent of American youth for which everything is being done, to which everything is being given, except a reason for living."

St. Paul and again Pius X have outlined a way of changing this for our children. We are to restore things in Christ. How many Catholics use only part of the Church's spiritual riches! This Lent why not take time to tap for your children the treasuries of its liturgy?

Activity Source: Holy Lent by Eileen O'Callaghan, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1975