Rebel Chef Pete's Lenten Sacrifice

Rebel Chef Pete
Mar 5
3 min read

Catholic Preist distributing penance in the form of ashes.

As we may know, I am a Patriot, Pro 2nd Amendment, believing in constitutional rights, putting others before me while trying to spread love and helping wherever I can. After the passing of my mom back in October, the holidays that followed just weren't the same without her. So, I decided to do something different this year for my Lenten Sacrifice. Before I do tell you my Lenten Sacrifice, let me share to you what a Lenten Sacrifice actually is for those that don't know.

What is Lenten Sacrifice?

Lenten sacrifice in the Roman Catholic Church involves fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. It is a time of spiritual preparation and reflection, leading up to the celebration of Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection during Holy Week. Being a 40-day period, Excluding Sundays, commemorates Jesus' 40-day period journey in the desert to rebuke Satan and his worldly temptations taking penance on oneself for their past sins and try to harden oneself against future sins. The start of this journey is on Ash Wednesday every year by forming the sign of the cross in ash on one's forehead.

Ashes in the form of a cross on one's forehead.

Lenten Sacrifice in Modern Times

Lenten Sacrifice is a voluntary renunciation of luxury items or pleasure to most Christians and Catholics.

These Items Include but are not limited to:

Give up coffee (or only brew it at home)
Give up alcohol
Give up certain social media sites, or limit them to certain days/time of day
Give up electronics after a certain time in the day (i.e., no screens after 8 p.m.)
Sleep without a pillow
Wake up without hitting the snooze button
Read a chapter of the Bible everyday
Limit your screen time to an hour a day
Cook instead of eating out
Go on a spending ban/limit
Give up snacking between meals
Give up sugar
Show more mercy
Pick a set number of outfits for the week and cycle through them all Lent (wash-rewear-repeat)
Accept compliments when they are given to you, don't reject them
Only drink water - no other drinks
Find 7 of your favorite things (clothes, books, gadgets) and give one away each week

*Above list is sourced from Hallow.com.

My Lenten Sacrifice

After the passing of my mom from stage 4 cancer last year, I felt that this year I should be more in tune with my faith. In past years, I would only give up chocolate and eat fish on Fridays while continuing with my everyday routine. This year I decided to be closer to God during the 40-day Lenten Journey through Fasting (Sacrifice), Prayer and Almsgiving. As Ash Wednesday is the start or the beginning of the 40-day journey, I decided to go to Morning Mass and witness the Ashes Ceremony as a way to start my penance. I will not lie; I did cry a little bit during the distribution of ashes as the communal Hyme cited that you will not be alone. That brought flash backs to the day my mom past as I was the one that made a decision over my father to relieve her out of her misery. On top of the Ash Wednesday Mass, I will be going back to church on Sundays and try to attend daily mass if I can and when I can't, I will pray in secrecy to the Lord as he will return me joy for my time with him.

With that being said, here are my 5 Items that I will be Sacrificing this year:

Reducing my coffee intake to only 2 per day.
To not go to WAWA or buy anything from there as I am there almost every day.
Fast from sunup to sundown on Holy Days and Fridays.
Set aside more prayer time
Reflect on myself and my actions, Good and Bad.

Well, there it is, my 5 Lenten Sacrifice that I am doing this year. I encourage you to pick your own or from the list above whether or not you are religious as this will make you a better person overall.