Website Wednesday: 3 Lenten Reflection Sites

Lent is a very popular time for parishes.  It's popular because people know that Lent is a special time in the year, a time to focus on God.  To help us "rend our hearts," many different communities provide a series of one-a-day reflections.  Below are three online series that I've found helpful.

Fast | Pray | Give

It's like an Advent calendar...that's fasting from chocolate.

Busted Halo does a great job of coming up with daily, relatable content 366 days of the year.  [Insert Leap Day joke.]  Their yearly Lenten offering does not disappoint.  Each day features a quote from a cultural figure, real or fictitious, along with one way you can fast, pray, and give that day.

Take a look at Saturday, February 25.  Yoda's famous "Do or do not -- there is no try" quote is featured.  Then below we see our three Lenten disciplines:

FAST from overthinking decisions.
PRAY to be more confident in your abilities and more active in your faith.
GIVE a call to a parish or community ministry today to schedule time to volunteer in a parish or community ministry this week.

If you're a techie, they tweet these every day.  You can follow them on twitter @BustedHalo.  Or bookmark this page to visit the calendar every day.

Lenten Dimensions

"You had me at hello."

Romero Center Ministries is an urban retreat and social justice education center in the heart of East Camden, NJ.  Their daily Lenten offerings (Lenten Dimensions) are themed through alliteration.  For example, today is "Wednesday Word" and yesterday was "Tuesday Television."  Frequently focusing on social justice, these reflections take on a different flavor than others by sifting through our world and engaging our culture with the Gospel.

For example, take a look at yesterday's Tuesday Television.  Using a clip from the movie Jerry Maguire, seminarian Kevin Mohan shows how important it is to say what you mean in prayer (and in life) and not be okay with God (or your spouse) knowing that you love them.  Interested piqued?  Read the rest of the reflection.  Or subscribe to their calendar and get the link in your Google calendar daily.

Lent with the Saints

Short and sweet daily moments of prayer.

Lifted from a Daily Reflection book with the same name, Lent with the Saints has a short reflection on each day's Gospel followed by a prayer.  Some days the reflection is replaced by a short profile of the saint of the day.  To get the most out of each day's reflection, you should make sure to read the readings of the day (or go to Mass) beforehand.

Do you have a favorite Lenten reflection series?  How does it stretch you during Lent?

Website Wednesday: Pray.nd.edu

This is how it looks

Continuing our series of looking at websites on Wednesday, we turn our gaze to a website focused on praying through the daily mass readings: Pray.nd.edu.  Run by the University of Notre Dame, my alma mater, "Pray" includes different content every day, centered around the Gospel for that particular day.  Each day, you find the text for the Gospel, a brief reflection written by someone connected to the University, and a prayer.

One of the strengths of this website is the sheer number of contributors.  Tapping into the vast resource of Notre Dame students, alums, and friends, Pray has featured past Notre Dame football stars, current students, priests and religious, and of course alumni.  Hearing from many different individuals keeps the site fresh.  There are "as many ways [to God] as there are people," as Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) once said.  The different perspectives allow us to see God with new eyes.

Let's take a look at a few of the other parts of the site.

Seasonal Sections
During Advent and Lent, "Pray" features videos for each week of the season.  Each video includes a well thought out, well delivered ~5 minute reflection on a particular aspect that shines forth in that week's mass readings.  I particularly enjoyed the one for the 2nd week of Advent:


Free Online Prayer Cards
Ever hit a patch where you don't know how you want to pray, don't feel like you have time to pray, and need to pray something short and meaningful?  So do I.  The prayer card section on the Pray website is an incredible resource for people in that spot.  Each prayer card is a PDF that can be printed out, cut, and folded up to fit in your wallet.  Here's an example of one of the prayers, a prayer for healing (PDF):

Prayer for Healing

Dear Jesus, we turn to you in this 

time of illness. Ease our worry 

and sorrow with your gentle love. 

Gift us with the strength to accept 

this burden. Lord, we place our 

worries in your hands. We place 

our sick under your care and ask 

that you restore your loved one 

to health again. Above all, grant 

us the grace to acknowledge your 

will and know that whatever you 

do, you do for the love of us.

Adapted from Missionary 

Oblates of Mary Immaculate 

Faith Videos for You

Looking at the world through a faith perspective requires some support and some challenge.  Tender, Strong, and True is a video series that tries to do just that.  With a wide range of relevant topics (starting and maintaining prayer, living faith at work, not being stressed), this video series is a real gem for anyone looking for help and guidance.

A great resource for Catholics on the go (they'll send you daily emails) or Catholics not on the go (watching videos), Pray.nd.edu can help you grow closer to God day by day.

If you have a website you recommend, leave a comment or send Isaac an email:

Website Wednesday: CatholicMom.com

This is how it looks using Google Chrome

Reviving a Wednesday theme, let's take a look at a great Catholic website for all parents that will help you include faith in your life.  CatholicMom.com is for more than just moms.  Click around the menu long enough and you'll soon realize there's something for everyone: Mom, Dad, teachers, catechists, Catholic and non-Catholic alike.

One of the strengths of the website is that it's updated with regularity.  If there's something going on in the Catholic Church, odds are there's an article, activity, or idea to incorporate it into your family.  You can see from the screen shot that there's a section on Advent.  And for the Immaculate Conception, they have a short article explaining history and some of our beliefs about the day.

Digging a little deeper, here are a few of the sections I'd like to highlight that are useful.

Sunday Gospel Activities
Encourage your children to learn about the Good News at home by utilizing one of the activities present in CatholicMom's incredible collection.  Organized by month and then by Sunday, the Sunday Gospel Activities provide something for many ages.  Your child is in the coloring phase?  There's a weekly coloring page (PDF). Kids love word searches?  They've got the word search (PDF) market covered.  Simple crossword?  You bet (PDF).  There are even what they call "mass worksheets" for children ages 7-10 (PDF) and 11-14 (PDF) to help them get more from that weekend's liturgy.  I wouldn't recommend coming to mass to fill these out, but still these can be great for getting ready for mass or processing afterward.

Movie Reviews
Multimedia play a big role in the life of children in the 21st century.  But as with anything we're exposed to, we need to be aware of what that media does to us and to our children.  CatholicMom's provides a tiny section on movie reviews that will review newly released DVDs as well as films still in the theaters.  Past reviews include the re-release of Dumbo, Super 8, and The Help.  While not updated with every movie that comes out, movie reviews do come in from time to time and appear on the front page of the main website.

(If you're very interested in other good film review sites, Catholic News Services reviews films as does a Christian website called Decent Films.)

Blog
Probably the greatest strong of the website is the blog that's updated every day.  It also happens to be the front page of the website.  A variety of articles will educate and entertain you, providing you helpful articles for parents and some opportunities to grow in your own faith.  Since that's along the same lines with what I hope to provide here on the blog, you should definitely check them out!

A hub for all things Catholic, CatholicMom is a solid resource for you and your family.

If you have a website you recommend, leave a comment or send Isaac an email:

Website Wednesday: Busted Halo

Busted Halo looks like this

Today, we'll take a look at a popular web magazine focused on our Catholic faith, and faith in general: BustedHalo.com.  Don't be fooled by its name, the website is a great portal for growing your faith.  Overseen by the Paulist Fathers, Busted Halo tries its best to reach you where you're at through engaging articles, podcasts, videos and more.

Engaging the World
Busted Halo makes a point of writing articles relevant to what's going on in the world right now.  An example of that was their recent coverage on the death of Steve Jobs.  Four different blog articles from four different perspectives appeared on the website, sifting through Jobs' life and finding principles that can be applied to our life in faith or lamenting how his passing will affect their family life.  If there's something big going on in the world, an article from Busted Halo should appear shortly, engaging that event from a Catholic perspective.

Website Wednesday: ForYourMarriage.org

Introducing Website Wednesdays, a chance for you to learn about faith-centered or family-centered websites that will be helpful for you and your family.  This won't be the update every Wednesday, but I liked the alliteration.

Today's website is a marriage website that was piloted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops a few years ago and is kept up to date; it's called "For Your Marriage."