Lent begins tomorrow — Ash Wednesday.
My fast is from something far more difficult than TV, meat, chocolate, internet or even coffee. (I know, I know – what could be more difficult for me to give up than coffee?)
For Lent I am fasting from complaining, bitching, whining, pity-parties, grumbling, and muttering. I honestly don’t think I can take Sunday’s off on this one.
If you have assumed the traditional lenten posture of giving up something – chocolate, alcohol, video games or the like, you might want to ask yourself this question: Is this choice spiritually meaningful? If it is, by all means continue, but if you?re counting the days until your time of self-denial ends so your life can get ?back to normal?, then think again. A switch to a more reflective stance for the remaining weeks of Lent might be in order.
A reflective stance can shed new light on our relationship with God, and that in turn, can bring us new life. Lent provides us with a chance to take stock of our daily living, and to look beyond ourselves, beyond our pain and suffering, and even beyond our death.
It is a sacred and privileged season – a time to reflect, to repent and to revitalize our lives. Lent prepares us to be Resurrection people and as we walk with Jesus through the lenten Gospels, we gain insights into how we are to follow him to resurrection. His relationship with God, his love for humanity, and his suffering, dying and rising provide three paths of meditation upon which we might embark at this time.
In Jesus, God?s love was not only made visible but was returned freely through prayerful praise, thanksgiving and obedience to God?s will. Does my daily life and prayer reflect a loving relationship with God? Do I know God?s will for me and am I obedient to it?
Jesus lived his life for others, showing love and respect for each person he encountered, challenging unjust and oppressive structures, affirming the faithful and healing the afflicted. In fact, his love for humanity is evident throughout the gospels as he teaches his followers to pray, forgives, frees, feeds and heals the multitudes, and goes to the cross on our behalf. In what ways do I follow his examples? How strong is my commitment to improving the lives of others, especially those who suffer from abandonment, poverty and famine, from natural disasters, violence, injustice and war, from ignorance and displacement? Do I understand that as a baptized Christian, I am obliged to carry on the work of Christ with these same people?
In Jesus? suffering and death, we witness his agony of abandonment by those who followed him and his scourging and suffering by those who feared him. We see the few who remained faithful at the foot of the cross as he died and darkness swept the land. And then, beyond the cross, we celebrate his resurrection by the Father who loved him. Beyond the cross of the moment that I might carry, whether it be illness, loneliness, poverty, injustice, or helplessness, there waits a loving God who wants me to experience resurrection too. Can I find strength and consolation in the promise of life beyond the cross I carry? How can I share it with others?
To live Lent is not to give up chocolate, but to ponder our own lives in the light of the Gospels, to make amends where necessary and to become reflectors in a world that desperately needs the light of the Risen Christ.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Winnipeg
