Ash Wednesday
February 14, 2018
Last week in my parish email I shared a quote from Sister Joan Chittister, OSB, a Benedictine Nun, and I would like to share it with you again because it is such a great reminder about the heart of the spirit of Lent.
Lent is the opportunity to change what we ought to change but have not … Lent is about becoming, doing and changing whatever it is that is blocking the fullness of life in us right now … Lent is a summons to live anew … Lent is the time to let life in again, to rebuild the worlds we’ve allowed to go sterile, to ‘fast and weep and mourn’ for the goods we’ve foregone. If our own lives are not to die from a lack of nourishment, we must sacrifice the pride or the sloth or the listlessness that blocks us from beginning again. Then, as Joel (2:12-18) promises, God will have pity on us and pour into our hearts the life we know down deep that we are lacking.
Lent is the opportunity to make choices that lead to fullness of life. Here is an example:
All of a sudden this week I realized I was feeling really tired. Someone came into my office yesterday and I was yawning and I apologized and I said, “It’s not you, it’s February.” But after I said that I realized, yes February is a low energy month, but I know full well how to get energized. Go outside in the cold and go for a walk (instead I choose to work out inside), drink more water, take vitamin D, sit in front of full spectrum light (I have one, should probably find it), eat more fruits and vegetables and less stodgy foods that are sleep inducing. So why did I choose not to do these things to fight fatigue. Because I did not feel like it. Or put another way, I did not choose to.
And this is a sort of silly example, but there are many times that we do things according to feelings. I don’t really feel like praying. I don’t really feel like reading something that takes effort and concentration because scrolling through FaceBook is a lot easier. I don’t feel like going for a walk, I’d like to be a slug. We all have our own version of running away with feelings at the expense of life enhancing choices. And the problem with this is, in the end, living this way is not fulfilling.
We rarely conquer anything, achieve anything because we feel like we want to do it. We move forward through decisions we make. Lent is the opportunity to say to your feelings “just hold on a second, I am making life fulfilling, God-centered decisions, so I can be more connected to my creator and savior, and to become the person that God would have me be.”
That is why the disciplines of Lent help us to re-order and to re-prioritize our lives. Those disciplines include: self-examination, repentance, prayer, fasting, and self-denial, readings and meditating on God’s holy word. These are all action words – actions to draw you closer to Christ and closer to the true essence of yourself.
The other important aspect of this observance is that we are reminded that we are dust and to dust we shall return. That someday we will all be dust. And this remembrance invites us to examine how we use our time so at the end of our days when we recollect how we used our time, we can with assurance say to ourselves that I used my time well and I did not squander it away without thought or purpose.
There is a beautiful prayer that is sometimes said at funerals on behalf of those who are gathered together which is a reminder of using our time well and I will finish with that prayer:
Grant us, Lord,
The wisdom and the grace
To use aright the time
That is left to us on earth.
Lead us to repent of our sins,
The evil we have done
And the good we have not done;
And strengthen us to follow the steps of your Son,
In the way that leads to the fullness of eternal life;
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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