What Can You Do for Lent?

Perhaps something you haven't done before - participate in a prayerful vigil in your region, attend a VOTF meeting, call a priest and share your support, read a book on our church history, a biography of one of the many Catholics who have made a difference in our time, all of the psalms or a religious poet you might have been avoiding.

Plan a Lenten liturgy using "A Liturgy of Rededication and Reconsecration" or use the VOTF liturgy as a model for creating your own.

Begin a personal retreat or find a prayer partner (or two or twenty!) and conduct your own retreat. St. Anthony Messenger Press publishes a series of retreat paperbacks. These offer readers clearly presented outlines for each session and an opportunity to choose among some of our greatest mentors - from Job to Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero to Hildegard of Bingen.

Write to VOTF and share your own idea or someone else's that resonates in a particular way. Whatever you do and wherever you are, know that we move through this most profoundly spiritual season as One People.

Lenten Vigil Watch at the Chancery. In the Boston, MA Archdiocese, VOTF members will join other groups for a peace-filled "Silent Watch" that will mark the sorrow felt by so many on behalf of the survivors. Organizers have also spoken of their hope for a just honesty in acts of repentance. The watch will take place at the Chancery, the seat of the Boston archdiocese, from noon to 3 p.m. throughout the forty days of Lent. Other affiliates around the country are planning similar actions. If you are interested in signing up for a day, please contact Andrea Johnson (Survivors Support working group in Wellesley) at or andreajohnson@attbi.com.

Perhaps you have always given up something for Lent — that cup of coffee you buy every day, or dessert at lunch. Why not take the money you would normally spend and donate it to a survivors' group or to the Voice of the Faithful to support our efforts. To donate to VOTF, click here.