Here is the first of two posts from my better half, just in time for Lent.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2157), “The Christian begins his day, his prayers, and his activities with the Sign of the Cross: in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. The baptized person dedicates the day to the glory of God and calls on the Saviors grace which lets him act in the Spirit as a child of the Father…” Why is it important for Catholics to dedicate their day to God? I can offer three reasons:

1) By dedicating our day to God, we are giving back to God, what he gave to us – another day.
2) By dedicating our day to God, we unite ourselves to the priestly office of Jesus Christ whereby our entire day becomes a “spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
3) It prepares us, before we tackle the challenges that the new day will bring, to embrace the closing words of the liturgy – “go in peace, to love and serve the Lord.”
Two of the most attractive features about this spiritual practice of dedicating one’s day to God, is that it is simple and time effective.
Simple – When I use the word “simple” to describe dedicating my day to God, I use it in the best possible sense. In my opinion, any prayer which is uncomplicated and straight forward is the most excellent. It doesn’t get any simpler than making the sign of the cross and in your own words thank God for the new day and pray for the grace to love and serve Him.
Time Effective – Another element that makes the “dedication” special is that it is time effective. What do I mean by time effective? As a husband and father with a growing family to look after, I rarely have an abundance of time to spend in daily prayer. Therefore, to be able to dedicate a new day to God in a way which is time effective is exactly what I need.
One thing I must caution the reader about is that this prayer needs to be prayed from the heart. Because the “dedication” can be both simple and time effective, it is easy to pray it in a manner that is routine and commonplace. To avoid this, I say my “dedication” with as much devotion and reverence as possible.
There are many spiritual tools that Catholics must put into practice in order to remain close to Christ. One tool that is vital to our spiritual life is to, dedicate each day to God. If you are doing this already, I encourage you to keep it up. If you are not, I would highly recommend that you begin.
God bless.