Great Lent Week 1 Check-In

So....how are you doing?  Just checking in to make sure that Week 1 of Great Lent is going smoothly for you.  And if it isn't, that's to be expected.  No one ever promised that increased amounts of fasting, praying and loving your neighbor would be easy.  Satan knows what's goin' on.  It's one of his busiest times of year I suspect.

I thought of some other ways to help out the hungry...and, of course, I missed the most obvious one that is linked to this blog...The Hunger Site!  Take a look at my sidebar stuff and click on the Hunger Site tab.  It's free, you can do it every day of your life, and it helps feed the hungry.  It is so like me to not see the most obvious thing on my own blog.  Dingbat is the word for it I think. 

Also, if you can't get to a food bank, you can make monetary donations through their websites.  I ended up having to do this.  My mom has been in the hospital all week and some other things came up that did not give much time to do anything else.  Thankfully my mother should be released to a physical rehabilitation center soon and the other things will pass. 

So until we meet again on Day 1 of Week 2 of Great Lent, I leave you with this meditation from St. Nikolai Velimirovic (1881-1956) from The Prologue of Ohrid, March 11th reflection:

"Good works are accomplished not by our efforts alone, but by the power and will of God.  Nevertheless, God demands effort on our part in conforming to His will."  These are the words of St. Barsanuphius and John - few words, but much is said in them.  We are obliged to labor, cultivate and prepare every good thing, and if some good will take root, grow, and bring fruit, that is up to the power and will of God.  We plow the furrows, and God sows - if He wills it.  He can do anything if He wills it.  And He will do everything that answers to the highest wisdom and wholeness, that is, to His plan of man's salvation.  In interpreting the words of our Lord, Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16), St. John Chrysostom writes that our Lord gave this commandment to His disciples that "they themselves should cooperate in some way, so that it will not appear that all effort is of grace alone and so that they will not think they received the wreaths of glory for nothing."  And so, both of them are indispensable for our salvation:  our effort and the power of God's grace.