One Mile equals One Rosary

As we are about to begin Lent, we are probably thinking about what we are going to give up or what we are going to pick up. Lent is usually associated with sacrifice. No meat on Fridays and giving up those chocolates or that ice cream that we crave daily. But as I've gotten older and hopefully wiser, in addition to sacrificing something, I also like to pick up a good habit during Lent. Sometimes the habit sticks around for life.

I picked up one such habit a few years ago and I dragged my hubby into it. It stuck and we are still doing it to this day. We like to walk in the morning. We are blessed to live in a beautiful neighborhood so we don't even need to drive to go for a walk.  It only requires us to wake up before sunrise which for me is the most difficult part. But my husband is a morning person so he pushes me out of bed at 5:30 am. I'm a turtle in the morning so it takes me a good 45 minutes to get ready. But by 6:15 we are usually out the door.  We walk the first two miles with our dog and mostly in silence. Then we drop off the dog and we walk two more miles at a faster pace. By this time I'm fully awake and I become a chatter box.

A few years ago, at the beginning of Lent, I told my hubby that I was going to pray the rosary during Lent while we walked. I gave him the option of either joining me or I would just pray it quietly during our third mile. He told me to say it out loud, that he would pray with me.  We noticed that the rosary would take us exactly one mile. But little by little we began to add prayers to the mysteries. There were so many people out there requesting prayers that we would offer up one mystery for the sick, another one for the souls that had passed away, another one for the young, another one for the old, another one for our kids, and so on. Lent finished and we continued praying the rosary. Now the rosary plus all the prayers that get interwoven between the mysteries, take up our last two miles. And I think that my hubby actually enjoys it more than all my pointless chattering.

As you decide what to do for Lent, I encourage you not just to subtract the candies or the sodas, but also to add something of value to your day. If you like to exercise, consider adding prayer to the routine. If you spend a lot of time in the car, that's also a wonderful place to pray or change the radio station to religious music. Switch a romance or a mystery novel for some inspirational book or the Bible. There is so much we can do and it only requires one small change to our daily routine. And who knows, it may become a lifetime habit.

The first character we are going to meet during our Lenten journey is Gideon. If you want to read his story before we start, you can find him in the Book of Judges, chapters 6 to 8. Here's the link to chapter 6:

http://www.usccb.org/bible/judges/6