Goodbye, Christmas Season...

... Hello, Lent! OK, well maybe not yet, but Ash Wednesday is only 29 days away! So, we officially ended the Christmas season by celebrating the baptism of Jesus. We now get about a month of ordinary season. I know that Lent is a ways off. But hey, if the malls are already decorating for Valentine's Day, then I'm allowed to get a bit ahead of myself. Actually, the reason I'm talking about Lent is because I thought of my Lenten sacrifice over the weekend. Well, it's not giving up something, it's adding something, so it seems weird to say sacrifice. But I digress. I am going to say the Liturgy of the Hours every day for the 40 days of Lent. Well, I'm going to try to. I figure that's why I need to look into this now to see if it's doable. Just like most of you reading this, I only really know of it in name and have an idea that you say different prayers at different times of the day.

I've always admired the Islamic faith with their daily prayers. I grew up hearing stories about how my grandparent's generation of Catholics said the Angelus at noon. And I've always been attracted to stories of people who lived their lives as a discipline, for example, Benedictine monks, Jedi, the guys in the old Saturday afternoon Kung Fu shows. I have had recent conversations with some fraternity brothers, lamenting that our chapters don't operate a little more like that, with set times when the chapter does specific things. Most of you that know me probably are already starting to think, "How the hell is he going to pull this off? Discipline is the not the word I most often associate with the author of this blog."

Well, I'm glad you asked, oh ye of little faith. I found an app. It's called Laudate. I'm pretty sure you could learn to be a practicing Catholic overnight with this thing. It has the daily readings at mass, the most fool-proof (and coolest) program for saying the rosary (seriously, even a protestant could figure out), the New American Bible, Papal encyclicals, the order of mass, prayers in Latin and vernacular, the catholic catechism, stations of the cross, an interactive checklist for examining your conscience before confession, aaaaand Liturgy of the Hours. I have never been more geeked out to be a Catholic! They should just call it the "map to heaven" app. If you played with all the things on here, you wouldn't have time to sin. seriously. So, that was my ulterior motive for today's entry. I wanted to give you all the opportunity to check this bad boy out before Lent got here, because, well, it's sick. I think downloading it should at least be one of your Lenten "resolutions".

Here is where I was going to explain what Liturgy of the Hours is in more detail, but I figure that would satiate your curiosity enough that you wouldn't download the app. Download the app!