Choose

Once again as we begin the season of Lent, we have to make a very important choice! We can choose to begin the journey through the desert of Lent, which will lead to the celebration of the new and life-giving waters of Easter; or we can choose to do nothing. We can choose to pretend that Lent has no meaning whatsoever, that it is just another useless liturgical season that really doesn’t touch our lives at all; or we can choose the difficulties of going through the desert of self-examination and the work of conversion. The choice we make is very important! It will affect us deeply!
When Easter arrives we will have moved a step closer to friendship with the Lord and love of one another, or we will have taken a step backwards. Life goes forward even if we do not! Lent is a golden opportunity. It is the one season of the year when, as a community, we are asked to take the time and energy needed to see where we can more closely imitate our Savior, Jesus Christ.
We are invited into the desert, not alone, but along with Jesus. We are invited, not to beat ourselves unmercifully by concentrating on how terrible we are, but to discover, with God’s help, where we are able to increase our love for God, our love for our neighbor, and our love for ourselves. This is truly a time of grace, not to be neglected!
As some of our brothers and sisters are in their final time of preparation for becoming full members of the Catholic Church, so we are all asked to re-examine how well we have followed Christ so that we can make the necessary changes to follow him more closely. In Baptism we were, as Jesus said, born again of water and the Holy Spirit. When Easter comes we will be invited to renew our baptismal vows. It will be our opportunity to make an act of faith once again in the abundant grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. That will be the climax of our journey with our Lord through the season of Lent.
We must be one with him in our repentance, entering more fully into his death to sin, so that we may be more truly one with him in the celebration of new life at Easter! Yes, we have been here before, but it’s still a new beginning!