Like many Catholics and Protestants, I’ve always appreciated participating in the Lenten season. I enjoy the year-to-year variety of making some sort of physical sacrifice of absence or addition as I spiritually prepare (Isaiah 58, Matthew 4) for Easter. However, I have the tendency to resist choosing any Lenten sacrifice that might be too hard. Some personality types seem so comfortable with Paul’s physical fitness approach, even interpreting and agreeing with 1 Corinthians 9:27 to mean Paul “beat” his body into submission. Not me. I tend to have more internal tenderness toward everything, including my body, and a resistance to being too demanding of it. What about you? Do you lean toward the end of the continuum of being harsh and maybe even abusive to your body? Or perhaps you fall to the other end of being cushy and maybe even undisciplined with your body? And even if you’re prone to swinging back and forth between the two approaches, St. Paul offers the encouragement to steady ourselves with purpose, discipline, and honor (1 Corinthians 9:24-25). This Lenten season I’ll post a short article each week to help us all stay balanced. Special Note: Lent begins next week on February 14, and Easter is March 31, 2024. This gives us another week to be praying and thinking about how God might want to qualify us this year.