Let us begin a six-week practical journey into this Lenten season to completely appreciate God’s love for us through Jesus Christ, His Only Begotten Son, who died for our sins and rose again to grant us eternal life. We can also learn how the power of Christ’s resurrection can be experienced throughout the year.
This Lenten season campaign will help us prepare our hearts and minds for Easter Sunday and encourage us to think about how we can make a difference in the world.
Lenten Season – Week 1
More than 785 million people worldwide do not have access to even basic water services, and more than 884 million do not have safe drinking water. For women and girls, this can mean trekking up to six hours a day to fetch water, often in unsafe situations. The result is girls have little time for school, which limits their opportunities in the future.
Women and children are liberated from a life spent collecting contaminated water when they have access to safe, clean water closer to their homes. Potable water restores wellness and provides opportunities for education, a bright future, and the complete life that God intended for them.
Basic water service is defined as water that is delivered through a better water source and collected within 30 minutes. A domestic connection, public standpipe, borehole well, protected excavated well, protected spring, and rainwater collecting are all examples of enhanced water sources.
What do we need to do?
This Lenten season we can make a week-long commitment to only drinking water. Give the proceeds (to a local charity or an NGO working towards conservation of water bodies and provision of clean water to people in need) we would have expended on other beverages to provide safe water to others. We should pray that everyone on this earth would have access to hygienic water and that they come to know Jesus as the living water.
Lenten Season – Week 2
Poverty manifests itself in a variety of ways, including hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition. When people can’t afford nutritious food, a deadly cycle starts: parents earn less because they’re weaker and are prone to sickness, and children suffer from starvation and unwholesome meals, which in turn leads to failure in schools, holding them back from future advancement.
Hunger affects 820 million people or approximately one in every nine persons on the earth. Though the earth produces enough food to feed everyone on the planet, we are unable to deliver the food to everyone due to war and conflict, climate change, poor public policy, food waste, and forced migration. We can distribute the food more equitably when we work together as a family of God Almighty.
What do we need to do?
This Lenten season we can eat simple home-cooked food and refrain from spending in restaurants, cafes, and fast food outlets during the week. Pray for the millions of people who go to bed hungry every night. We can also donate to a local food bank, which can be found at parishes, homeless shelters, or even food outlets.
Keep in mind that Jesus satisfied both physical and spiritual hunger when He was on earth. This Lenten season we should pray to the Supreme Being to provide families with the resources they need to cultivate their food or afford to buy it so that their children can grow up to be healthy and strong.
Lenten Season – Week 3
Jesus asks us to show compassion and kindness to people who are in pain, not just from injuries but from any mental or physical sickness. It’s a wonderful sensation when friends bring soup or assist with everyday activities while we’re unwell with a cold or flu. Imagine how difficult it must be for people who suffer from major and chronic illnesses, especially if they are stigmatized or experience social exclusion. We can show the rest of the world what mercy looks and feels like when we help those who are most in need.
What do we need to do?
This Lenten season we can spend some time alone praying for people who are isolated and suffering from illness or pain. We can read the Word of God and claim those promises for those in need. We can also volunteer at a local hospital or elderly center. We can make Get Well Cards, which will bring a ray of sunshine into a day overcast with illness, for sick folks, or write letters filled with warmth and gentleness to them.
We can also fill knapsacks or paper bags with personal hygiene products and distribute them to the poor and homeless. We can pray to the Creator to grant individuals who are unwell, particularly kids, vigor, courage, and strength, and to ensure that the world’s most defenseless and weak people get access to the medicines they require.
Just like the Good Samaritan in the Holy Bible, this Lenten season we should care for people who are unwell regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity, and cultural background.
Lenten Season – Week 4
Stories of hospitality are found throughout the Bible. Many of these events revolve around food, but generosity involves more than just cooking a delicious dinner for someone. It entails inviting others, including strangers, into a space of goodwill, companionship, and caring. We can imitate Jesus by demonstrating this kind of hospitality, as He welcomes us all to come to Him for rest (Matthew 11:28).
The generous host in the Parable of the Great Banquet (Luke 14:15-24) isn’t content with a half-full dinner hall. He wants the table to be bursting at the seams! As a result, He continues to invite people to his feast, even those who are considered dirty and unfit (the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame). Similarly, Jesus ate with people who were considered outcasts and sinners regularly. He preached that God’s kingdom is open and welcome.
Families have been witness to unimaginable brutality and have borne the brunt of conflicts in various parts of the world. Many people have become refugees in their country of origin due to struggles, coups, and civil wars. There is an urgent need for more than safe-havens. We must welcome refugees who are fleeing their homes and attempting risky trips to safety. Scriptures ask us to accept displaced people with warm hearts and open arms.
What do we need to do?
This Lenten season, we can work with local or national groups that are assisting with the integration of refugees into our communities. We should pray to God to give life-saving aid and a new sense of hope for asylum seekers and castaways.
Lenten Season – Week 5
The lack of clothing is one of the most blatant omissions in the realm of development. Millions of people around the world do not have proper clothing or footwear. Countless organizations work on improving nutrition, electricity, literacy, health care, and employment opportunities, but we rarely hear about the need for clothing outside of catastrophe relief efforts. Clothing is a form of shelter for the poor. During the winter, many individuals die due to hypothermia as they lack warm clothes. The most evident indication of poverty is torn threadbare material.
Lack of proper attire could harm people’s physical, mental, or social development.
What do we need to do?
This Lenten season, we should attempt to wear the same outfit for more than one day. Remember to pray for the millions of families and children who are unable to procure clothes they require for their daily living. We can downsize our wardrobe and give gently worn clothing to local charities that help the less fortunate. We can start a free clothing bank to keep the poor and needy from freezing this winter. We should pray that all families on this earth have access to the necessities of life, such as clothing, food, education, and healthcare.
Lenten Season – Week 6
Around the world, more than 10.35 million people are incarcerated. The changing trend in inmate population, overpopulation in detention centers, decline in living conditions, increase in drug-related offenders, shortage of effective treatment programs are just a few of the major issues facing prison systems currently.
Jesus recited from Isaiah 61 in his neighborhood synagogue. Then He stated that He was the one who would bring “good news to the needy,” “liberation for the captives,” and “healing of sight for the blind” as prophesied by Isaiah. He’d be the one to “liberate the oppressed” (verse 18).
Jesus lived out these words during His earthly ministry. He spent time with the underprivileged, oppressed, and needy. He told them about God’s kingdom and how they could become a member of it. He preached a new way of life, based on faith in God, and He revealed how people can be free in Him.
We’re encouraged to follow our Savior by trying to serve those who are enslaved, imprisoned, and exploited. Jesus comes into our lives not merely to change us, but also to change the world.
What do we need to do?
We must ask the Heavenly Father to give people in prisons strength, protection, and freedom. We should pray for those who are mistreated, wrongfully imprisoned, confined to solitary confinement, tortured, starved, beaten, physically and mentally tormented, or denied access to the outside world. We must also pray for the families of inmates who face systemic exploitation and abuse and pray for those who are struggling to reconstruct their lives.
This Lenten Season we can visit a prison and share the good news of the Gospel to the prisoners and give them hope, courage, love, and confidence by reading the Living Word of God.
Our articles on Lent will help you understand the need for God’s presence in your lives and use this season as a time of repenting, sobriety, refocusing, and renewing. Practice prayer, observe fasting, give up something, and assist those in need.
