It also incorporates a strict fast. For us, fast food and snacks have replaced prepared meals and family suppers. Bad time-management practices have curtailed family participatory events. Work schedules and extra curricular events have supplanted time spent with one another. These more than any reason should make Lent important for us. Here is our opportunity to inspect what really is important, and what is frivolous. Do we really have to go to the Mall(s)? Is the most recently released movie that important? Are we so caught up in our music that we must have the most recently recorded song by our favorite singer(s), and run off to download and then upload to our fancy electronics? How unfulfilled will we be if we miss the tonight’s showing of American Idol? Would we become less adroit if Dancing with the Stars was pre-empted? Lent, however, is an event which should not be missed. Of course, there is always, next year, or is there? Since we are not all-seeing, and all-prognosticating, should we take the chance? Movies, television shows, internet clutter, i-pod musings, video programming, and recreational diversions can be resumed at a later date, but Lent and the effect of change in our well being cannot. No Billy Buckner, you cannot have a do over on Mookie Wilson’s ground ball, but because of Lent, we can. Take advantage of this time. It may be the only time we have to insure our relationship with God. Find the special meaning of Lent in the services, hymns and prayers of the Church. Find the reward of Christ and Holy Communion through the sacrifice we are called upon to make through the Fast. Grow in Christ and begin the life-long event of change we call Great Lent.