An Easter Gift to Yourself

Lindsay Schlegel recommends a book of devotions to keep newly established prayer practices in motion beyond Lent.

What a joy it is to celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord at Easter! Should you suggest Easter is a single day in the presence of my children, they will quickly correct you: Easter is celebrated as an octave—and that means dessert eight nights in a row! Lent is over; the party is ON.

Kidding aside, it is beautiful to celebrate Easter as an octave, and really as a whole season, rather than as a single, twenty-four-hour day. Each year, though, I struggle as Lent shifts into Easter. I know I don’t need to continue with the Lenten practices I undertook (however successful or unsuccessful I might have been), but what if I want the fruits of those practices to continue in my life? How do I discern what is good for me in Lent and what is good for me all year round?

We each need to answer this question for ourselves, on a yearly basis, with creativity, and with openness to the movement of the Holy Spirit. I’m reminded that Saint John Paul II prayed the Stations of the Cross not just every Friday during Lent, but every Friday all year through. Perhaps you started going to daily Mass during Lent; you might try to go twice or three times per week from now until Pentecost (or beyond!). We must be mindful of scrupulosity, but it is good to make sacrifices. It can be good to up our prayer game from time to time. And as far as I see things, it’s always good to work solid reading into your day.

Saint John XXIII wrote in his daily decalogue—the resolutions he strove to keep each day:

Only for today, I will devote 10 minutes of my time to some good reading, remembering that just as food is necessary to the life of the body, so good reading is necessary to the life of the soul.

Amen? Amen!

If in these few weeks into the Easter season, you’re missing the devotional reading you undertook for Lent, might I make a suggestion? Fellow CatholicMom.com contributor Samantha Stephenson has a lovely book that might be just the thing. Mama Prays: a 30 day devotional for Catholic moms offers up brief, thought-provoking, and heart-stirring reflections for ordinary moms in the midst of Ordinary Time.

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The book is a collection of posts from Samantha’s blog, Mama Prays. Having a copy in hand means less screen time and more opportunity to make notes and interact with the text. The text is surrounded by generous margins that mean this little volume could easily double as a prayer journal. If that’s not your thing, why not gift one to a friend and commit to reading one chapter a day, then sending a quick text message with your reaction to it?

Mama doesn’t always get an extra treat at Easter (apart from the love and mercy of her Savior and the chocolate she borrows from her kids’ baskets, of course), so consider this your invitation to do something to continue growing your relationship with the Lord in this season of rejoicing. What new thing did you learn about yourself or about the Lord this Lent? How is He calling you to build on that, to continue to draw closer to Him? To surrender more of yourself to Him? What have you got to lose by saying, “yes”?

(Psst! When you’re finished with Mama Prays, dive into Samantha’s other book, Reclaiming Motherhood in a World Gone Mad. It’s chock full of truth and will help you defend Catholic teaching with poise and proof. You may find yourself cheering out loud as you read, as I did.)

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