Have you begun your Lenten journey?

Each year during Lent, the Church invites us to set out on a journey of repentance and renewal. It’s that time of year again! We began our journey on Ash Wednesday. 

Though it’s not a Holy Day of Obligation, Ash Wednesday liturgies are among the most popular and well-attended of the whole year. It resonates with our need to set things right. 

We are called to repent and believe the Good News: God loves us. He sent his Son Jesus to suffer and die for us. He has risen from the dead and shares his life with us. This is the heart of the Gospel. Lent refocuses our attention. 

From the earliest Christian centuries, Lent was the time of final preparation for those preparing for Baptism. Recently, on the first Sunday of Lent in cathedrals throughout the world, catechumens and candidates participated in the Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion in preparation for the celebration of Baptism and the Sacraments of Initiation at the Easter Vigil.

In subsequent centuries, Lent became a season of special observance for all the members of the Church who accompanied the catechumens by their prayers, and prepared to renew their own Baptismal promises at Easter. This is the rich meaning and goal of the Lenten journey still today. 

We begin the Lenten journey by being signed with ashes. The journey leads to the glorious celebration of our victory over sin during the Paschal Triduum. We share Jesus’ paschal journey through death to new life. 

Lent is a season of repentance during which we acknowledge our sins, seek mercy and pray for a change of heart. Unfortunately, we sometimes satisfy ourselves with only superficial gestures during Lent. The Lord offers us more. The true grace of Lent invites us to profound repentance and a reordering of all that is disordered and distorted by sin in our lives.

In the Gospel for Ash Wednesday, Jesus challenges us to be sure that our religious observances are directed toward pleasing God rather than impressing others: “Be on guard against performing religious acts for people to see.” Our Lenten observances need to have both an inner quality and an outward expression.

In that same Gospel, Jesus prescribes the three traditional practices of the Lenten season: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. These practices are valid for Christians in every age. We can be creative in how we use them, but it is important that our Lenten observances involve some aspect of all three.  

Fasting is a way of expressing our prayer bodily while seeking freedom from self-indulgent appetites. As Catholics we have an obligation to fast and abstain from meat on certain days of Lent. 

But, fasting can be more. We also can fast or abstain from other comforts and distracting habits such as social media, television, etc. Self-denial in whatever form helps us grow in interior freedom. Turning away from sin and seeking pardon through the Sacrament of Penance is a fundamental element of Lenten preparation for Easter.

Prayer is what gives our fasting and other works of penance a true interior quality. Many individuals, families and parishes have their special Lenten customs. The traditional Stations of the Cross on Fridays are a popular way of accompanying the Lord on the journey of his bitter passion and entering deeply into the mystery of God’s love for us. 

Reading and praying with the Scriptures, especially the liturgical readings of each day, can make this a profoundly rich season of grace. Some make the commitment to attend weekday Masses more frequently. 

Almsgiving, or sharing with others, is important so that our spiritual exercises don’t leave us self-absorbed, but rather help us reach out to others in mercy. The Lenten journey gives us the opportunity to express our repentance by opening our hearts both to the Lord and to our brothers and sisters, especially the poor. Setting aside something for the poor as the fruit of our own self-denial is an important way of combining the disciplines of fasting and almsgiving. 

Practicing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy can guide our Lenten practice and make it even more fruitful. Leading a Bible study, visiting the sick, the homebound or the incarcerated, volunteering to help feed the hungry or leading a clothing drive in the community are among the many ways we are invited to enter fully into the season of Lent and experience a profound and lasting change of heart.

The ways of observing Lent only are limited by our own creativity. The Church offers us minimum standards such as the serious obligation to abstain from meat on the Fridays of Lent and to fast and abstain on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. We build on that foundation, but are encouraged to seek more.

Some of us are procrastinators. We may wait until Lent is nearly over before getting started. Now is the time to prayerfully decide how the Lord is calling us to observe this season. 

What are the sins we need to uproot? What are the virtues we need to cultivate? What are the steps we need to take to realize these desires? Start with these questions and formulate a simple and realistic plan.

Lent is a shared journey of faith. Let us pray for one another.