During this season of Lent, I challenge each of you to do the following three things:
· Give up dessert
· Pray to become more responsible
· Fast from complaining
 
I recently read a daily meditation in the book Lent 2023 Make Room for Lent by Joe Sica that spoke directly about fasting from complaining.
 
He said, “Whiners and naysayers are all around us! For them, the weather is too warm or too cold, the boss is a jerk, and the food is lousy. No matter how good things are, they see only the bad in everything. I invite you to create a complaint-free Lent. This idea is modeled after Maya Angelou’s comment, “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.”
 
Embracing a complaint-free Lent begins when we refocus our lives on gratitude. Most of us tend to concentrate so heavily on what’s missing in our lives that we barely perceive the good that counterbalances it. When we open up to gratitude, we see clearly how much good there really is. Those things we are lacking are still there, and we still have shortcomings. But instead of focusing on them, we find something to appreciate. I recently spoke with a woman who could only move around in a wheelchair. She said, “My mind is as sharp as ever. I have something to be grateful for.”
 
Gratitude turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, and confusion into clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, and a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
 
To help me fast from complaining, I wear a brass bracelet on my left wrist. When I find myself complaining, I move the bracelet to my right wrist. It stays there until I complete an act of penance for complaining. Then I move it back to my left wrist and start all over. The bracelet is a constant reminder for me to be aware of my complaining. 
 
 
Fr. Len MacMillan