During lent, we are given the opportunity to take a look within ourselves for self-examination and the church recommends prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to help us. For many, lent is just about giving up something but often this is very empty with no life-changing impact. In reality we should look at incorporating our Lenten exercises grounded in our pursuit of living an authentic Christian life... Aka our call to holiness.
Thus, when we decided to fast and deny ourself candy, alcohol, meat, etc during lent; we need to constantly think of those in the world whom do not get to eat, have fresh water to drink, etc. In addition, we become aware of how much we take for granted and we fail to give God true thanks for the abundance He has given us. Then as we are called to share our gifts, we can take that money that we would have spent on the item we are fasting from and in turn donate to a charity that can assist others. You see we profit nothing, if we decided to fast from dr. Pepper and instead switch to coke. Yes, my preference is dr. Pepper, but am I truly gaining something by switching to coke during lent. But instead, if i give up dr. Pepper and every time, I craze one or would have purchased once, I set aside the money I would have spent as well as think of those who go with out clean water. Then at the end donate it, to an organization that helps to bring food to those in need.. That would have been a good spiritual growth opportunity.
But lent and fasting does not only apply to food, we can also fast from hobbies that take away our time or attention from God.... Facebook, video games, movies, tv shows, etc. so in this, we might look at one of our activities which drains our time and is not helping us in our Christian lives so we decide to fast from it. In turn we take that extra time we now have to pray, read scripture, volunteer, attend daily mass, etc.
What I love about the church in so many ways, is the more I learn about it, the more sense I see it makes. For example, lent is a 40 day journey to grow in holiness. We see in the bible the significance of 40, but we also see Jesus taking 40 days in the wilderness to pray and there He was tempted. So during our 40 day journey we know we will be tempted, yet we also know God gives us the grace to overcome temptation. From a modern day culture, we often hear leadership experts tell us that if we desire to create a new habit or get rid of a bad habit, It takes 40 days. Long before modern psychology, the church knew the power of 40 days and now modern science supports this idea of 40 days to being a new person.... Huh, new person... That's what our baptism calls us to be!
The goal of lent and encouraging us to each do more fasting, praying, and almsgiving then we normally do, is to help each one of us to be stronger and better Christians then we were prior to lent, but our Lenten growth should not end when Easter comes. We should continue to grow and continue to outdo our previous years Lenten promises. For what great leader makes the same goals year after year... No they make goals that build off of the previous years goals.
One of the areas that I struggle in, is in my thoughts and words. So last year, I kept a little brown book in my pocket and wrote down each of my failures. This spiritual exercise made me aware of just how much or how often I had bad thoughts or engaged in bad conversations. Each time, i realized my failure, i pulled out the book and wrote in it and prayed for help as well as tried to say something positive about the person. As the season of lent continued, I noticed that I was being converted, in that I did not have to write in my book as often as I first had to do. So as part of my continued growth, this year I plan to say a decade of the rosary whenever I fail in my thoughts or words.
Last but not least, we enter the season of lent with pope Benedict the Xvi recent decision to leave the papal office. I have much respect for this great theologian and personally have been enriched by his leadership. I will mourn for the loss of this pope but I am also excited for whom God will have lead His people next. None of us have ever been in a role with as great of responsibility as that of the pope and yet in my small way I am processing his decision. A pope has not only the right but the duty to step down when he is no longer capable of being the head shepherd of the lords people. For a man that has always been seen striving to know God, love God, and serve God it should come as no surprise that upon him feeling, he was no longer able to best serve Gods people to whom God had entrusted Them to, that it was his duty to step down and freely leave the seat of Peter.
Pope Benedict xvi said: "After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry."
Each of us, have many roles and responsibilities and we must always make sure through prayer and examination of our conscience that we are serving God and putting His will and His people above our own desires and dreams. Sometimes, we get caught up in the status of the world or being the head of a ministry and somewhere we forget the reason we initially joined that ministry. Our pope has just shown true character, going from the greatest seat of honor to the lowest, according to our societies standards. He now plans to serve the church through a life dedicated to prayer since his abilities to serve physically and mentally are coming to an end.
So as lent begins, let us each commit to praying for the church and our leaders. Let us each give thanks to the witness that our pope has given us and that we too may examine our conscience to see where God is calling us and then not be afraid to go. We hear the words calling us this lent, "do not be afraid!"
