Impressive Sacrifices

Our soul was stirred when the National Catholic Register (Feb. 29-Mar. 6) asked 11 “influential Catholics” what they were “giving up for Lent.” What follows is what we found to be the most impressive things given up by each individual.

– Mary Beth Bonacci: “Sugar! I’m giving up sugar. In every form — even no ketchup. That means reading labels…. I’m going to make a real effort to spend more time in front of the Blessed Sacrament each day.”

– Russell Shaw: “Frequent and unnecessary access to the Internet and checking my e-mail. It has become more and more self-indulgent…. I’ll just go on the Internet and check e-mail only three times a day. [With the time saved] I can…say a decade of the rosary.”

– Camille de Blasi: “I’m going to get up every morning one hour earlier for daily prayer and the rosary.”

– Fr. Mitch Pacwa: “Ice cream and sweets…. I will see the movie The Passion of the Christ, but I’ll also refrain from movies during Lent.”

– Marie Bellet: “I’m keeping my surfaces clean. That means my desk, which is always messy, and the counters and all surfaces that get piles of paper. I’m sorting through all this stuff and not leaving it about.” (She’s also forgoing watching EWTN and joining an Ignatian Bible-study series.)

– Deal Hudson: “I’m going to do bread-and-water fasts on Wednesdays for Lent.”

– Helen Alvare: “I’m actually going to try to listen to God during prayer. I’m also going to give up candy….”

– Janet Smith: “I generally will give up reading the newspaper in the mornings because I like to do that…. A delicious mortification for females is to look in their closet and wear something they don’t like to wear. It’s excruciating for females to wear what we don’t look good in.”