Students in the Catholic schools across the Archdiocese of Newark have been observing Lent by attending Masses and liturgies, abstaining from small pleasures, praying for loved ones, giving to those in need, and reflecting on the meaning of the preparatory season.

Jersey Catholic spoke with students across the Archdiocese to discuss how they are observing Lent this year.

Praying for family, friends, and teachers

Jonalin Martinez, a Kindergartener with Saint Michael School in Newark, said he is praying for “family, teachers, and friends” this Lenten season.

Grace Cuttita, a senior at the Academy of the Holy Angels in Demarest, has been observing Lent by leading others to deepen their prayer lives. “This Lenten season, I have led a retreat with my church youth group where we examined our relationship with ourselves, others, and God,” she said. “We prayed as a group and individually throughout and were offered the sacrament of Reconciliation by our priest. I have been praying mostly for my family and friends, that they may be happy and healthy.”

Cuttita, who serves in several campus ministry roles at the academy including as a lay Eucharistic Minister and altar server, said that Lent is important to her because “it is a time that I set aside to deeply remember Jesus’ sacrifice and love for us and God. I am called to test myself through discipline, resisting temptations as Jesus did in the desert, and remember to be more prayerful.”

Audrey Stevenson, a fifth grader at Our Lady of Częstochowa School in Jersey City, said that she is nurturing her devotion to the rosary during Lent this year. “Every Sunday, I pray the rosary. I mostly pray about asking God to help me with my sacrifice for Lent,” she said. The sacrifice, according to Stevenson, is bickering with her brother. She said she chose this sacrifice because she wanted to make her parent’s lives “easier.”

“Lent is a time for me to improve what I do, who I am, and try to be the best version of myself,” Stevenson said.

Sacrificing the little pleasures

Camila Carasco, a Kindergartener at Saint Michael School in Newark, said she has given up eating chocolate during Lent. “It helps me to love Jesus,” she said. She is also praying with her family during Lent to thank God for her life and pray for “world peace.”

Zoe Palacio, a fifth grader at Our Lady of Częstochowa School in Jersey City, said she is cutting down on using technology during this Lent. “I am giving up screen time because I want to be able to spend more time with my mom and family, especially when my baby brother is born in March,” she said.

Students at Oratory Prep in Summit are voluntarily giving up their cell phones during lunch, as part of the school’s Lenten “Phone-free lunch” tradition. Father Matthew Dooley, Oratory Prep School Chaplain, said that “phone-free lunch is a simple sacrifice to help us to be present to one another in the moment we are together. As a schoolwide effort, it is an invitation for the students, corporately, to share in some way the Lenten journey of these 40 days.”

Giving back to the community

Anna Laura Cupido-Carlorosi, a seventh grader at Our Lady of Częstochowa School in Jersey City, said that this Lent she is practicing almsgiving “by taking part in community service, helping those in need, praying for those less lucky than I, and trying to spread joy to everyone I encounter.” One way upperclassmen at the school have been practicing almsgiving is by reading to younger students during Read Across America Week.

At Holy Trinity School in Westfield, students packed over 200 bagged lunches to donate to St. Joseph’s Social Service Center in Elizabeth.