There's Still Time to Begin Using 'The Catholic Playbook' for your Lenten Formation

CatholicMatch.com serves up a rich Lenten feast, offering food for the soul

With 40 meditations written by and for single Catholics, you'll walk together every step of the way, from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday by reading "The Catholic Playbook: A Lenten Reflection for Singles." This book includes a foreword by Bishop Kevin Rhoades, prayers by Fr. Gary Caster and an epilogue by the USCCB's Theresa Notare.

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - As I picked up "The Catholic Playbook: A Lenten Reflection for Singles" for the first time, I caught a glimpse of the CatholicMatch logo on the cover and couldn't help but think of the question I've been asked several times: "Why don't you sign up for one of those online dating websites already?" Having been single for most of the thirty years of my life, I always found this question more annoying than persuasive. Of course I've heard the success stories and even know friends who have found their spouses through dating websites, but it never seemed to be a good fit for me personally.

I was impressed, nevertheless, to discover that a company I had always associated with just one thing (online dating) would attempt to connect to the single person beyond their website and offer encouragement for one's daily Lenten struggles. Thus, with slight trepidation I began reading the collection of reflections written by CatholicMatch singles. However, before I had even finished the preface, I knew this book was something wonderfully different.

Quoting the "Catechism of the Catholic Church," Bishop Kevin Rhoades, of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind. reminds the reader in his foreword, "Prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours. God thirsts that we might thirst for Him. Prayer is a response of love to the thirst of the only Son of God." This thirst is nurtured from over 40 reflections written by singles in all states of life: the unmarried, widowed, divorced, and those discerning religious life, edited by CatholicMatch.com Editorial Director Christina Ries. Each reflection ends with an insightful prayer written by Fr. Gary Caster, a college chaplain who is also a contributor to EWTN and "Magnificat."

The Playbook offers daily contemplation on the struggles and joys of single life, emphasizing the idea that "whatever is in our hearts can be offered to Christ as part of our complete gift of self to Him." The sometimes simple yet honest reflections invite the reader to journey through the forty days of Lent in solitude with Our Lord, connecting each day to His pain and suffering offered out of love for each single person.

In the book, we are encouraged to "unite [one's] own questions, doubts, fears, and uncertainties to the ones He experienced" and thus find contentment in the only One Who knows each person fully and completely. Through the forty days of Lent, and forty reflections of the book, the reader is invited to "see the face of God, the one who loves us best" and to realize just how great that love is: a love that reaches beyond loneliness, beyond solitude, beyond frustration and impatience, and into a deeper love that is God Himself.

For more information and to order "The Catholic Playbook: A Lenten Reflection for Singles," visit CatholicMatch.com.

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Jennifer Wilson is a graduate of Mount St. Mary's University, Emmitsburg, MD, and currently serves as the director of Young Adults for Our Lady of Hope Catholic Church in Potomac Falls, VA.

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