LENTEN Sms FOR CHILDREN. Establishing a contact with God through the mobile phone: the pastoral ministry for children of the diocese of Magdeburg aims to make children reflect on faith and life through text messages sent by mobile phones. The initiative was born from the growing interest of children in cell phones. “Place yourself in a condition to receive, like your cell phones, so that a contact may be created between you and God”, urged Matthias Slowik, in presenting the project. According to Slowik, the aim is to enable children to experience that “God has something to do with my life; with our text messages that invite children to think, we want those who use a cell phone to stop for a moment during their everyday life to read the text and reflect on it. Perhaps we may even be able to establish a dialogue”. The sms for children is complemented by a similar project of text messages for youth. A CALENDAR TO DARE TO LIVE DIFFERENTLY. “Dare to live differently for 40 days”: that’s the invitation made by the new Lenten calendar published by Herder-Verlag for the 40 days that precede Easter. The calendar encourages Christians to put their life in order. The authors, the teacher of religion Marcus C. Leitschuh and the Capuchin monk Paulus Terwitte, give practical advice about how to live our everyday life in a Christian way. According to Terwitte, the calendar does not have as its objective fasting in the strict sense or the renunciation of alcohol. Its aim is rather to “augment and not lose our joy in life and our quality of life. So, Lent is a plus, not a minus: ‘something more’, not ‘something less’. The calendar really begins from Ash Wednesday”. Terwitte’s hope is that it may inspire a different idea of Lent: “The Christian period of Lent wants to experience love anew. And loving in the right way gives us a joie de vivre that remains in time and makes us willing to share and celebrate with others: something we Christians will freely do at Easter”. LENTEN blog. A Lenten blog will open on the Catholic website katholisch.de on 1st March. Nadine Ortmanns will write of her Lenten experiences to share them with visitors to the site. Comments and opinions can be inserted.
