The Gospel of Ash Wednesday gives Lent its three practices, prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and the Church's tradition has always seen them as one thing seen from three sides: turning to God, turning away from self, turning toward one's neighbour. The trouble most people have with Lent is not a lack of good will but a plan that is either vague ('be better') or impossible ('daily Mass, no coffee, no phone, and a novena'). This guide is a method for choosing three practices you can keep for forty days, which is what makes them fruitful.

What you need

• Fifteen quiet minutes in the week before Ash Wednesday
• Something to write on that you will see every day
• One person you trust enough to tell

When to pray it

Choose the practices in the days before Ash Wednesday; begin them on Ash Wednesday; review them every Sunday of Lent; complete them in Holy Week.

Steps

1. 1

   Step 1: Start from your actual life

   Before you choose anything, look honestly at the next six weeks: your work, your family, your health, your commutes and your evenings. Ask two questions. Where is God being crowded out, and by what? And who around me is in need that I could reach? The answers point to your fast (what crowds God out) and your almsgiving (who needs you). Do not begin from what a saint did or what someone on the internet is doing; begin from where you are, because that is where God is going to meet you.

2. 2

   Step 2: Choose one prayer practice

   Pick one thing you will do every day, at a fixed time, that you do not do now. It might be praying the Morning Offering▾ the moment you wake, ten minutes with the day's Gospel before breakfast, a decade of the Rosary on the way to work, the Our Father▾ prayed slowly at noon, or Night Prayer before bed. If you already pray daily, choose a weekly addition instead, such as a weekday Mass or Friday Stations. The test is not how impressive it is but whether it has a time and a place.

3. 3

   Step 3: Choose one fast

   Beyond the Church's required days, choose one voluntary self-denial for the whole of Lent. The best fasts touch a real attachment: a food or drink you reach for without thinking, an app, television, shopping, complaining, the snooze button. Say exactly what the fast is ('no alcohol on weekdays', 'no phone after nine') so that it cannot quietly shrink. A fast should be felt but not dangerous, and it should free time or money, because the next step depends on it.

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   Step 4: Choose one work of mercy

   Decide how the time or money your fast frees will reach someone else. Choose one corporal or spiritual work of mercy and make it concrete: a weekly gift to your parish's Lenten appeal or a Catholic charity, a visit each week to someone sick or housebound, a meal cooked for a struggling family, an apology owed, patient help with a colleague's work, praying by name for someone who has hurt you. Almsgiving in the Church's sense is any gift of self to a neighbour in need, but it must have a name and a date.

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   Step 5: Write them down

   Write the three practices on a card or a note you will see every morning, with the exact time and place of each. Write the date of your Lenten confession beside them. Unwritten resolutions dissolve by the second Friday; written ones can be kept or, if necessary, honestly revised. Some people place the card in their missal or on the bathroom mirror; the place does not matter so long as the eyes fall on it daily.

6. 6

   Step 6: Tell one person

   Tell one person, a spouse, a friend, a confessor or spiritual director, what you have chosen, and ask them to ask you about it in a few weeks. This is not boasting, which the Ash Wednesday Gospel warns against; it is accountability, which the same Gospel's community of disciples took for granted. Choose someone who will actually ask. If you are married, consider making the almsgiving a shared practice for the household.

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   Step 7: Review each Sunday

   Every Sunday of Lent, take five minutes to look back over the week: which practices were kept, which slipped, and why. Thank God for what held and ask forgiveness for what did not, then decide whether anything needs adjusting. Sundays are not fast days, so this review is a moment of rest, not a second penance. Laetare Sunday, the fourth, is the traditional midpoint; it is a good day to notice that you are halfway to Easter.

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   Step 8: Finish with Holy Week

   Do not let the practices trail off after the fifth week. Plan to keep them through Holy Week and to be present at the Triduum: the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday, the Celebration of the Lord's Passion on Good Friday and the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night. Many people find that the best fruit of their Lenten fast is the freedom to spend those three days in church. When Easter comes, ask which of the three practices should stay; a Lent that changes nothing permanently was only a season.

Tips

• Choose from your real life, not an imagined one. The prayer you can keep on a Tuesday in March is the right one.
• Make each practice specific enough that you know at bedtime whether you kept it.
• If one of the three proves impossible after the first week, replace it on Sunday rather than abandoning the whole plan.

Related practices

• Fasting
• Almsgiving
• Ignatian Examen