Ash Wednesday

As we enter the season of Lent, a time of penance, prayer, fasting, and reflection, I think that it is sometimes easy to see it as a time purely of sacrifice, rather than opportunity. Yet that is what it truly is, an opportunity to draw closer to our Lord Jesus Christ by uniting ourselves more closely to Him by focusing ourselves on His example of sacrifice.

In our Gospel today, our Lord admonishes His disciples, and us, that when we seek to follow Him, we need to do so joyfully and without trying to draw attention to what we are doing. Any attention drawn toward our own actions is a distraction from Jesus sacrifice for each of us, even if that attention is something we are simply focusing on from within, where we think too much of ourselves with the little things we sacrifice during Lent. We are instead to humbly, quietly, and joyfully pursue our Lords example. When we fast, we do so without complaint, and we do not strive for a minimum, but instead embrace the fullest example of fasting we are capable of in order to draw that much closer to your Lord’s example. When we serve others, we do not do so overtly for the eyes of others, we do so in a way that only our Lord is aware of. When we pray, we immerse ourselves to where we are not limiting our time or effort, but rather relishing the experience and sustaining ourselves through prayer rather than consumption. Our lives become centric around Jesus Christ, and we become more attuned to His presence and His message.

Our Lenten preparations when approached in this way are not a burden, they are something to be embraced, and lived out with enthusiasm. We are preparing for a time when we will celebrate our Lord’s resurrection, which is the reason we have any hope of life being more than this brief and challenging existence we now live. We are preparing to come into full rejoicing and awestruck gratitude for the sacrifice that was made on the cross, and the fulfilment of the promise of salvation that could only come from our Lord rising from the dead. If we need a perspective to keep during our brief time of fasting, abstinence and prayer, this is the one. The God of the universe loved each of us enough to become one of us, and to take on a fate of suffering that was rightfully ours and did so out of shear love for each of us. It is the warmth of this love that we are able to draw closer to each Lent, when we share a bond of intimacy that can only come through shared sacrifice. I wish each of you a blessed, intensely prayerful, and intimately sacrificial Lent with our Lord as your focus.