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| Lent: a time to get our priorities straight |
Later that same day, we joined in prayers particularly for those mourning losses at a Parkland, Florida high school. Our prayers continue to go out to the families of these 17 victims who died so tragically in a senseless shooting massacre.
Pope Benedict XVI noted, “Man is dust and to dust he shall return, but dust is precious in God's eyes because God created man...for immortality.” We cannot escape the earthly mystery of evil and violence, yet we know we have to respect each and every life God creates.
Lent is a forty-day retreat: a time to ask again who and what are our priorities. It's a time to follow Jesus into the wilderness, not only to confront demons or addictions within us, but also to replenish ourselves with the gifts of the Spirit (for example, wisdom, good judgment, courage). The Jews of old saw the desert as a place where a person encountered God and God encountered the person.
Maybe we're feeling emptiness, dissatisfaction. Things are going OK, but what does it all mean in the end? So, let Lent be the time to focus on trying always to do the right thing.
Maybe we find ourselves facing new challenges and problems: enhancing family time; making income stretch a little more; living with a serious illness; supporting a youngster through a difficult time. Or maybe we're confronting a temptation that may throw us off track. We have to make some tough life-changing decisions. Listen to Jesus's response to his “tempter”: God is my priority not material things, service to others not self-centeredness, humility and generosity not “superstar” status.
Lent is a time to look deeply within ourselves, to ask who am I, where am I going, and what is my true purpose? Let us walk with Jesus as our companion through our own wilderness, and let his Spirit of compassion and his light of wisdom drive the "tempter" out of our lives so that we can be a channel of grace to others. The Church invites us to focus on prayer, fasting and almsgiving:
1. Prayer is an awareness of our dependency upon God, a grateful response to God for our very existence. There are many approaches to the presence of God: like the Our Father, this Eucharistic liturgy, prayers of silence or petition.
2. Fasting and almsgiving are Gospel twins. For early Christians, going without food enabled the hungry to eat. Fasting can also mean doing without anger, impatience, selfishness, negative judgments about others, whatever prevents us from living in discipleship with Jesus. It's a time to reach out with a helping hand, through volunteer service or charitable giving or whatever.
Yes, Lent is time to ask God for the grace to get our priorities straight. It's a time to ask, what do we have to stop doing and begin doing?
