What I learned during Lent.

I gave up a few minor things during Lent as well, but my main Lenten discipline was 

1. to give up trying to pray the Liturgy of the Hours every day, and
2. to pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary instead every morning, or at least a decade and
3. not to use the computer before noon, or at least until I'd accomplished my Rosary prayer.

  

So simple, and yet sometimes so difficult.  I love the Liturgy of the Hours, a.k.a. the Divine Office.  I love praying the prayers of the whole Church.  I love the daily readings in the Office of Readings.  I agree with Flannery O'Connor who wrote in one of her letters,

Anyway, don't think I am suggesting you read the Office everyday. It's just a good thing to know about, I say Prime in the morning and sometimes I say Compline at night but usually I don't. But anyway I like parts of my prayers to stay the same and part to change. So many prayer books are awful, but if stick with the liturgy, you are safe.

I have never been a big fan of the Rosary, even though I usually do get something out of it.  But I have difficulty fitting the longer prayers of the LOTH into my day, and you have to be able to find the breviary (another thing I've not gotten into is Divine Office podcasts or reading it off the computer), and stuff.  The Rosary's easy to pick up, easy to put down, and a single decade takes hardly any time at all.  I am pretty adept at counting on my fingers if I don't have the beads with me.

Why did I do this?  I was looking for a way to get more into the habit of prayer, and the somewhat more complicated (though lovely) LOTH was difficult to do in short bursts with kids clamoring for me, and the Rosary was a lot easier even though it doesn't appeal to me as much.

On the solemnity of St. Joseph (March 19) I decided to pray the Office in honor of him, after having put it aside for weeks.  It was like water to the parched, let me tell you.  I had missed it so much.  It gave me a real appreciation for it and made me more and more resolved to use what I learned from the Rosary to re-establish the LOTH---somehow---in my life.

So.  What did I learn?

First, that avoiding the computer until my morning prayers were complete was a pretty good strategy.  I may adopt it as a general rule.

Second, that I can pray a Rosary in almost exactly the amount of time it takes me to drive to either of my two friends' houses, something I do about twice a week.   Bonus!  (No LOTH possible there, unless I learn to use podcasts.  Balancing a breviary on your knees while driving 55 mph:  not recommended.)

Third, that a single decade can be as fruitful as five.  Which makes me think:  Perhaps I can adopt an abbreviated form of each Office to be used when I am short of time.  Surely part is better than none at all, and if I planned ahead to use an abbreviated form, maybe I'd feel less frustrated when the children interrupt me and I don't "finish."

Fourth, that the Rosary is not nearly as tedious as I thought it was.  After days and days of praying the Sorrowful Mysteries alone, I kind of thought I would have stopped finding new things in them, at least for that season.  I know they are a bottomless well, but still---wouldn't they say to me everything there is to say here in this particular Lent in my particular life?  And it's true that some days I didn't see any remarkable insights.  But they still kept giving me a steady supply, every couple of days or so, of new things to ponder and take to heart and learn from.  In the future, I don't think I will feel slighted if my schedule "only" allows me to use the Rosary.