Pope Benedict recommends prayer with fasting for Lent

I came across this article, thanks to Spirit Daily. I think that these words of the Holy Father are especially apropos:

We have 40 days to deepen the relationship with God during the austere period of Lent, Pope Benedict said, noting the faithful have useful instruments to achieve a true inner and communal renewal: charity or almsgiving, prayer and penance or fasting.

Such external gestures, which must be performed to please God and not to get men’s approval, are acceptable to him if they express the heart’s determination to serve him only in simplicity and generosity.