A Time for Lists

Lent is getting nearer. . .

I remember, a year or two ago, hearing an excellent Sermon at the Oratory by F. Ronald Creighton-Jobe, in which he drew attention to the fact that the fashion of his youth for making a 'Lent List' - in which one set down the Lenten penances and disciplines one was going to follow, the Lent book(s) one was going to read, and the Spiritual Graces one was praying to achieve - seemed to have gone; and he suggested that it was a fashion which was overdue for a comeback.

. . . and that is the only purpose of this very short post : to suggest that in these last weeks before Lent we can prepare ourselves by thinking on these things, perhaps writing them down, but generally being ready so that Ash Wednesday does not find us unprepared, and our keeping of the Holy Fast does not get off to an uncertain start.

(May I also suggest that one element of that preparation might be checking on confession times, so that you can be sure to make your confession immediately before the start of Lent, and not end up having to delay until the first weekend !)