Learning the Powerful Lessons of Lent
The 30-hour famine (no solid food) was an especially powerful experience for my students at St. Peter’s Prep. A group of students participated in this activity with me when I was the coordinator of the Outreach Program. We usually started our fast after lunch and continued throughout the next day until the evening (usually the Wednesday of Holy Week into Holy Thursday). The rule was they could partake only of liquids.
We used the time to do works of charity — make lunches and deliver them to the homeless on the streets, work at a soup kitchen, serve meals, visit and play games with the people at drop-in centers in Manhattan, etc. We watched a few videos on poverty and shared prayer together. The students also collected pledges from people for their fast and the money was donated to the poor.
Lent at Prep was also the time for collecting money for the Mission Drive. Ironically, since it was an all-boys school, most of Lent was a time for teachers to sell candy and cake to the students to raise funds. My homeroom came up with the idea of selling banana bread (that the students had baked themselves or convinced their mothers to bake) on Fridays during Lent for lunch.
We served plain banana bread slices or banana bread with peanut butter and jelly or Nutella sandwiches during the lunch periods and before school. It was a smashing success, and we always came out as one of the top homerooms in money raised for the Mission Drive!
— Sister Frances Marie Duncan
Before being elected provincial minister of the United States Province, Sister Frances Marie taught at St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City, N.J., for 20 years.
