HAVE A MEANINGFUL LENT

We have completed one week of the Lenten season - a season of fasting, prayer, penance and almsgiving. When we started, we began with a strong desire to make this Lent different from every other Lent before. However, this past week, there’s been an atmosphere of festivity, with Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year.

Now that the celebrations are over, lets be a little serious in observing Lent from this week onwards. There are many graces and blessings waiting to be offered this Easter. Everyday should be a realisation that a life-changing moment is being offered for us. During this favourable season, we have entered once again into the process of preparing our lives for greater heights and to go deeper into our spiritual lives. Often these questions come to mind: What should I give up this Lenten season? What can I do this Lent to deepen my trust in God? God is slowly and steadily transforming our lives towards greater joy, love and service for His people.

Some may find it difficult to fast and abstain, but relatively – today’s Lenten observance is much easier compared to decades and centuries ago. The Church doesn’t require us to fast and abstain every day throughout the 40 days of Lent, unlike our Muslim brethren do, during the month of Ramadhan.

We may think that by abstaining from meat or skipping a meal or two a day, that we keep this season holy. However, the Church invites us to pause and examine our interior disposition more thoroughly. We have to stop and listen to our bodies, which often directly influences our attitude and behaviour. We need to see our true weaknesses, limitations and tendencies toward what is comfortable and pleasurable, and then make sacrifices accordingly. Our sacrifice needs to be a gift to God and to our neighbour. When we make a sacrifice a gift, then it will turn into a powerful form of prayer and fasting. These prayers and fasting reminds us of our hunger for God and our preparation for our eternal life.

We have become so negligent in some areas of our lives. The season of Lent invites us to be more self-denying and self-disciplined by tuning our minds and bodies in a more spiritual manner. We need to leave our selfish attitudes and not to grow cold towards global ecology and conservation. For this reason, we need Lent and this is what Lent is seen today.

As we encounter trials and struggles with sin, we should also anticipate something wonderful and exciting in our daily lives. “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all you need, you will abound in every good work,” (2 Cor 9:8). God’s greatest desire is to bless us always and to place us close to His heart. He desires to make all grace flow in every aspect of our lives so that we may carry our good work for His greater glory and for His Kingdom.

Let us make this Lent different, by offering the grace and blessings which we have received from Him to the less fortunate. Make necessary changes in our lives by reflecting on what repentance is all about. May this holy season of Lent teach us to create a space for God and for one another rather than in ourselves.