Will Lent be different for you this year? Are you aware of the many graces that are offered to you in this penitential season? Can you imagine that God can help transform your lives, lead you to greater freedom, greater joy, and a deeper desire for love and service? Or will you make excuses not to make this Lent different? Will it be the same old story? The usual few at week day Masses, Reconciliation, Adoration, Stations, and Scripture sharing sessions and other Lenten events? Will fasting and works of charity be deeds of faith….. or even happen at all?
Lent can change your lives if you give yourselves to it. You need to want it badly enough. We must realize how much we need to grow in freedom, how much we need to lighten our spirits, and experience that inner peace that comes from prayer, and how much some parts of our lives really need changing… we call this Reconciliation (Confession for our older folks). Lent is a wonderful time to name the sinful, unhealthy, self-centered patterns that need changing and to work on a change of heart and look at what attitudes and behaviours contribute to these negative patterns.
Lent is a season of being invited by God in a deeply personal way. “Come back to me, with all your heart.” (Joel 2:12). God invites us to drop the walls that we hold between ourselves and God. God wants us to realize that our standards, our ways of judging and loving, are very different from God’s way. What keeps us from accepting the Lenten invitation to something deeper in our lives with God? The only reality is the joy that comes from returning to God, the joy we experience when God, like a loving parent, smothers us with embraces. Like the prodigal son, we have returned.
Our Lord is calling us to a change of heart. We know that nothing will change unless we change our patterns of behaviour. With a little reflection most of us find habits and ways of being and acting that we are not proud of. We think of things we need to do and never get around to doing. We feel the call to change our attitudes, our selfishness, our ways of dealing with others. Maybe we do not take God very seriously. Maybe we miss Mass too often, and do not contribute our just share. We do not take God seriously.
Lent is the time to start new patterns of prayer. It is time to read the Scriptures, be faithful to the Lord’s invitation to Mass, time to pray together as a family, time to visit the Lord in church during the week or Adoration.
Lent is a wonderful time to practice selfless giving because it takes practice. Self-sacrificing generosity is a religious experience. It places us in union with the poor who share with one another without having any excess. It joins us with Jesus who gave himself completely for us.
WILL LENT BE DIFFERENT FOR YOU THIS YEAR?
