Lent and the Devil

Lent can be a beautiful time of preparation for Easter, a time of holy asceticism and spiritual growth. It can also be a time of assault by the Devil, who likes nothing better than to confuse and derail one's resolutions. At least I've sometimes found it so. I've noticed that some of my favorite writers have been recommending a strategy of preparing for Lent well ahead of time. Very prudent idea, I should think. They recommend setting up a plan, a project, and laying out the details well in advance, preparing with spiritual reading, devotions, and the like. Easy to talk about. Harder to do. And we academic types have a bad habit of thinking we're doing something when we're merely just talking about it, or even just thinking about it. Time to stop merely thinking and talking and start doing -- planning, preparing, implementing, going to Confession, choosing a penance, undertaking a reading project, a new devotion, and firming the resolve as we enter into the long blessed silence of the 40 days ...