The three facets of Lent most often emphasized are fasting, praying (including attending services) and giving.   Many do not realize that not giving to the Church is a crime against God…
Malachi 3:8-9: “Will a man rob God?  Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me.”

But, that’s Old Testament!  Aren’t we under the New?
Luke 6:38:  “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”

Many people complain that they harder they work, the less they seem to have.  Some even begin to ‘blame God’ when it is actually they who are to blame through lack of giving.  And the giving needs to be to the Church: parish, mission fund, church sponsored effort to fight hunger, etc.,  not secular ‘charities’.   Try it and after a while, you will see a difference.

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