One Week Before Ash Wednesday

I felt very enthused about preparing for Advent and not at all thinking of Lent yet. I have a Mardi Gras party to look forward to on Sunday and a home Liturgy on Shrove Tuesday and a few other things that are perhaps keeping me from thinking about Lent plus I will be going away on the First Sunday of Lent to spend ten days in Arizona with family. I guess this is all a bit distracting, but hope that I will settle down to make a plan for the six weeks of Lent. This is a season that the Church gives us to prepare to enter more deeply into the Pascal Mystery - the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
So many of my friends are dying that I feel that one should prepare as though this was the last Lenten season one may have in this life. I guess the big question is :What does the Lord want from me this Lenten season? Fortunately, we each have a week still to discern the answer to that question or, better still, listen to the Holy Spirit. I think one thing I will do during Lent is to read and pray over a big that I have just ordered. It is about the historical Jesus and is by Jose Pagola and has good reviews. That and being disciplined about my schedule for prayer and exercise may be what the Lord wants from me this Lent. I also hope He shows me how I can be working on the book I really want to write, but seem not to make myself spend time in actually writing it. I may just need to build in time just as I have done for the gym, water exercise class, and afternoon prayer. Let us prayer for one another this week and think seriously about what the Lord might be asking of us this Lent.