In her spiritual care for her children, the Church recommends to us the traditional penitential practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving as fitting ways to help us grow in the life of grace and holiness.
PRAYER: encountering Christ individually and communally. Prayer offers us all a very special opportunity to grow in our relationship with God and to deepen our commitment to a way of life, rooted in our baptism. In our busy world, prayer is a time to quiet our minds and wait for the answer to the question: “What is God trying to tell me?”
FASTING: Abstaining not just from food or drink, but from the routines we all fall into that prevent us from living consciously. We can fast from the things that dull our awareness of God’s presence in our lives at every moment, in every relationship, and in every human encounter.
ALMSGIVING: Spending time looking for, finding, and acting in concrete ways to reach out to the poor and the marginalized; asking what we can give so that others might have life to the fullest.