It hard to believe Lent is upon us. It seems we just finished Christmas. Never the less it’s here and it’s one of my favorite times of the year. I know some people think of it as a heavy, somber time and during Holy Week it can most definitely be, but I look at it as an abridged marriage journey. Fat Tuesday is like the wedding ceremony. Then the start of Lent is similar to a couple starting out on their honeymoon season. It’s a time when I can enter the desert alone with the Alone. Jesus and I together. I can pack lightly because He is all I need or want. Then just as the years go by in a marriage and the love increases and deepens leading to sacrifice, so does the Lenten marriage journey as we end in Holy Week with a greater love for God and neighbor. It is then that we find our journey has expanded our heart and by that we have a greater ability to sacrifice in union with Jesus. It is a time when our hearts have expanded with love because during our marriage journey we have died to self so our true identity, our love, our union with Jesus can rise with Him at Easter. In the celebration of our risen Lord we find that we have moved beyond an earthly marriage and have journeyed to a Heavenly marriage as we celebrate that Jesus has risen and has taken us to be His bride. In 40 days we can model what our entire life should be…a marriage with Jesus where we slowly empty ourselves of self so we can be in a greater union of love with the one who emptied Himself to be one with us.
Lent is a time when we are advised to focus more on prayer, fasting and almsgiving. I look at prayer and fasting being means to help me to love God more. I think of almsgiving as my way to love God in my neighbor. All three of these encompass the two most important commandments of loving God and neighbor. Almsgiving helps me to love God in my neighbor and how we love our neighbor is a good measuring stick of how our prayer life is going as it is a fruit of it. Without a strong prayer life that leads to a greater love of God, we cannot love our neighbor. On the same token, the more we love our neighbor, the more we will love God because He will not let our generous heart for our neighbor go without a reward. When we give, it is given back to us in an overflowing manner. Our love for neighbor is then rewarded with greater love for God. These two commandments are deeply intertwined and dependent on one another. Through prayer, fasting and almsgiving, Lent gives us the opportunity to step back and allow our focus on God and neighbor to become realigned so we can have fuel for the year to come.
Prayer is our time spent intimately alone with the one who loves us more than anyone. We can take the time to grow in this area in some way that builds on our relationship with God. Using scripture is a great start for our prayer time. When we pray on a passage we can reflect on how it helps our relationship with God grow in our interior life, our active life and in our love for neighbor…those we see and those we don’t. When we read scripture with our personal relationship with God in mind in these areas that totally encompass our lives, we can find that even a passage on war can help us in our interior life. What at first seems to be two total opposites…war and prayer…surprisingly fit together perfectly. Suddenly we see our enemies can be our distractions and that only God can tame and defeat them. Yes, every passage has the potential to help in our personal relationship with God in these areas that make up our lives if we ask the Holy Spirit to help us and prayerfully reflect on them.
We often think of Almsgiving as only being a financial gift. Money isn’t always feasible, but if that’s not possible, there are other ways we can give. Jesus tells us not to perform righteous deeds so that others may see them. We can give our neighbor our time or talents, for example, without them knowing we are doing it as a form of almsgiving for God. If you bake, you can take your time to use your gift of baking to buy ingredients or use those you already have on hand to bake someone a cake. You may feel uncomfortable giving money that a cake mix would cost, but that cake can be a huge gesture of love to give to someone who is hurting in some way. They don’t have to know it is your form of almsgiving, but this act will take your focus off of self and put it on loving God in them. It also can enhance your desert experience of being on your honeymoon. Alone with the Alone.
Fasting can also help us in our relationship because it is done with God and He alone sees. A traditional bread and water fast can free up your time spent on figuring out what you are going to cook and eat so you have more time for prayer. There are other things you can fast on, but it is best that the sacrifice helps you to focus on God and grow closer to Him. For instance, a sacrifice of time in some way can help in your relationship. If you gave up an hour of tv time, that hour could be used for more prayer time, spiritual reading or in loving God in your neighbor. That time could be used to clear the calendar to be with your bridegroom more and letting Him be your focus. My reason for doing my part to ensure that Lenten fasting is done in a way that helps me to focus on Jesus is twofold. One is as I mentioned above. Lent is our marriage journey that starts out with the desert honeymoon and continues on in time with the deep love of sacrifice. To be in greater union with God, Jesus, our bridegroom, started His honeymoon alone and with fasting and we would do well to do the same. Secondly and as part of this, I believe that throughout Jesus’s passion, the cross was always at His back because He wanted us to see that the cross should not be our focus. He didn’t let it be His focus. He cleared the view to let His Heavenly Father and us be His focus. So while I am making a sacrifice of fasting I try and not make it the focus, but make God, my neighbor and love be my focus. I do my part to be open to the Union and I trust that God will do His part. That brings us right back to Lent being a condensed version of our marriage journey. Fasting is different for everyone because it is led by the Holy Spirit. Just as He did with Jesus, He will help you to be God focused through it. If fasting on chocolate is what you desire, pray for a way to find that the sacrifice of giving it up ends in you being closer to God and having Him be your focus. Doing it as a mindful sacrifice united to Jesus for someone who is in need is different than giving it up, never thinking about God or others by it, but daily checking the scale. On the cross we were the focus of Jesus. We would do well to do the same so our union grows stronger day by day as we approach Holy Week and ultimately our departure for Heaven one day to the Heavenly banquet.
I suggest you pray on how you can make this Lenten journey a special time with God. My ways are just a sampling of what you may be drawn to do. Through prayer the Holy Spirit will show you what to do so that by Easter you won’t be the same person as you are now because your love for God and neighbor will have grown. Jesus’s love reached a climax by Good Friday so it can be our goal to be more in union with Him by then and love more because of that greater union.
Prayerfully Reflect on the following with God:
Jesus teaches about almsgiving. Matt 6 1- 4
Jesus teaches about prayer. Matt 6 5 – 14
Jesus teaches about fasting. Matt 6:15-18
Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit and fasted. Luke 4:1-2
You can’t out give God. Luke 6:38