The Season of Lent has begun. During the second reading at Ash Wednesday mass, we hear the powerful words: "We are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us." It's one of my favorite bible quotes. Lent is a very special time in the life of the Church and in the life of each Catholic. The fact that so many millions of people feel a need to present themselves for ashes, I think, is a sign of the hunger that people have for God. We must not allow our Lenten experience to be simply the ashes. That must be simply a recognition of our mortality and our dependence upon God. Our design is to be an Ambassador for Christ and our destiny to live with God forever and our life of the resurrection must begin now in our lives with discipleship, in the way we follow Christ into the desert for 40 days.
At St Mary of the Visitation Parish we will be focusing upon Lent within the context of a theme - Spring Training. During each of the weeks of Lent we will be getting ready for our Season Opener - Easter - by reviewing some "drills" - Fasting, Prayer, Penance and Almsgiving.
The busyness of life is such that I think we would all agree that Time is one of the greatest treasures which we have. This weekend we started our Spring Training by looking at Fasting - but Fasting Time. Taking time we would give to ourselves and instead dedicating it to God. One such way may be thru praying the Stations of the Cross on Friday evening, or maybe dedicating a little more time daily to prayer - a devotion such as the Rosary - or maybe just quiet time listening for the voice of the Lord.
I recently game across this excellent resource which might be of help - just some thoughts to help you with your Fasting. - www.ewtn.com/faith/lent
During Lent we will also have a Parish Mission with Bishop Peter Hundt from March 22-25. See our website for details.
I will be taking a little break from the Blog during Lent, part of my fasting, see you in 40 days.