Lent is more than a time when Catholics don’t eat meat and give up something like chocolate or cursing.
Lent is a season.
And like any season, ie spring, summer, fall, winter, there is (or rather should be) TRANSFORMATION.
This Lent, allow the scriptures to change you, transform you.
Let the Word fill you, awaken you and bring you to life.
When you do, then you’ll understand the full meaning of God saying, “return to me with your heart.”
Sometimes it is in letting go, that you find what you are seeking.
First Reading – Joel 2:-12-18
“Be Merciful O God, for we have sinned”
Psalm 51
On the surface this scripture is contradictory.
Jesus says, to go to your room and shut the door to pray in private, yet Ash Wednesday is the only time when you come to church and leave with a visual mark for everyone to see you believe in Jesus.
The ashes become the outward symbol that you are believer, thus shouting to everyone that you are Christian. However, the mark also is the acknowledgement that you are unclean, you are a sinner.
“Turn away from sin and be true to the Gospel”
So, YES, you are called to go to your room to pray in private to seek forgiveness, to become clean.
Think of Lent as you being “grounded.”
It’s time to work on yourself, your relationship with others and your relationship with God.
A time to change the wrong you’ve done and to make amends.
Lent begins with the Ashes on your forehead but through the six week of Lent you sacrifice, pray, and do the work.
Then at the end of Lent, the ashes are washed clean by the blood of the lamb. Washed away through the renewal of Baptismal Promises
Gospel Reading – Matthew 6:1-6,16-18
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