Create in
me a clean heart, O God
and renew a right spirit within me
says Psalm 51 [v11] and help
me to find my way back to You. While I always have sincere ideas of
grand repentant gestures and pious activity, You and I know I'm not likely
to stick with an overly difficult or inconvenient discipline despite my best intentions. But please, help
with the everyday moments that draw me away from You. Instead of planning what to give up, guide me toward realizing what I can take on. Grant me the consciousness and conscience to review my path of this last
year. Help me to restore my soul in smaller, yet more meaningful ways
such as being mindful of my thoughts, emotions, and
actions while driving; being more patient in the grocery store or bank line; having the humility to step back from instant judgment of others to see what is within me; and
mostly, Lord of all Peoples, on each day of this Holy Lent, and every day
thereafter, let me understand the reality of and live into the words You have given
us:
Forgive me my sins AS I forgive
those who sin against me.
For all this I pray. Amen.
Lent isn’t meant as a dark and dreary trudge
through the wilderness of gloom and doom. Life is a gift of God, a treasure, a
miracle. Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness testing himself and preparing for his ministry. We in the west are so very busy that everything has to be on the calendar of our phones so we know the when, where, and what of life. How about programming 40 minutes of time once a week to pause, examine our sins - faults - and acknowledge the everyday idols that constantly lead us astray. As Fr. Richard Rohr suggests, let us take this time to learn what our
sins can teach us about ourselves and, how to improve us.
We go through so much of life unconsciously and
we can't get rid of something we don't know, or don't want to know, that we have. We can't improve ourselves if we don't fully know who we are. Lent is a time to
look closely and discover what we've been hiding in the basement of our souls. Just
like Spring cleaning - or Fall if you're in the southern hemisphere - it's time
to awaken to the best of ourselves, re-discover what it means to commit our
lives to Christ, keep the good stuff and throw the sin out with the trash. Let us repent with
eagerness, with attention and intention, let us turn toward the Light and
thrive.
P.S. Lent isn't just
for certain church-goers, or even just Christians. If
you are not a church-goer, or in a denomination that experiences Lent, for
someone who has faith, or wants to have faith, or whose faith has been shaken
or is shaky, or even lost, Lent is a season to rediscover ourselves
and our relationship with God, and to establish or renew our commitment. It's
not about giving up chocolate or cigarettes, it is about changing heart and
mind upon which some over-indulgences, unhealthy habits, and even some serious
life patterns can be identified and remedies discovered. It is a time for
reflection of our past actions, our genuine intentions, and the repair of
our souls. Some of us will be marked on our foreheads this day
with the sign of the cross in the burnt remainder of palm fronds, the
symbol of the great triumph of Palm Sunday now reduced to ash. This is an
outward sign of and inward recognition of our human mortality. Christian or
not, we all know the expression Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust. No matter how
high one reaches in life, or how low, we all return to dust.
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