Lenten Reflections
Lent is the most important time of the year to nurture our inner life. It is the time during which we not only prepare ourselves to celebrate the mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus, but also the death and resurrection within us. Life is a continuing process of the death of the old and the familiar, and being reborn again into a new hope, a new trust, and a new love. The death and resurrection of Jesus therefore is not just an historical event that took place a long time ago, but an inner event that takes place in our own heart when we are willing to be attentive to it. True repentance is an interior attitude in which we are willing to let go of everything that prevents us from growing into spiritual maturity, and there is hardly a moment in our lives in which we are not invited to detach ourselves from certain ways of thinking, ways of speaking, ways of acting, that for a long time gave us energy, but that always again need to be renewed and recreated.
Lent offers a beautiful opportunity to discover the mystery of Christ within us. It is a gentle but demanding time. It is a time of solitude but also community; it is a time of listening to the voice within, but also a time of paying attention to other people's needs. It is a time continuously to make the passage to new life as well as to life with those around us.
When we live Lent attentively and gently, then Easter can truly be a celebration during which the full proclamation of the risen Christ will reverberate into the deepest place of our being.
Jesus answered, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5:31-32)
Jesus said, "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." (Mark 1:15)
So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift." (Matthew 5:23-24)
How can we believe in a God who loves us unconditionally if all the joys and pains of our lives are in vain, vanishing in the earth with our mortal flesh and bones? Because God loves us unconditionally, from eternity to eternity, God cannot allow our bodies -- the same as that in which Jesus, his Son and our Savior, appeared to us -- to be lost in final destruction.
No, life on earth is the time when seeds of the risen body are planted. St. Paul says, "What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body." (1 Cor. 15:42-44) This wonderful knowledge that the life we live in our bodies is not lived in vain holds a call for us to live every moment as a seed of eternity. I pray that the grace of the good Lord will help us discover how to make this a truly blessed Easter.
God bless us all!
+ Bishop Dwain E. Houser
