Lent is here!!!!! And I know that for most of us, it just crept up on us. I know that I wasn’t exactly prepared for it this year. Well no matter if we are prepared for it or not, it is still here. I hope we have all figured out what we are doing for Lent this year. I remember in the seminary when guys would start off Lent with a bang. They were excited and they would really go at it. Some guys would even give up eating meat for the whole of Lent (This is something we used to do for Lent, it would be a season of abstaining from meat). I have to say that guys sure were excited to kickoff Lent and they fought hard to do it. Some of them made it the whole of Lent very easily without eating meat, others really, really struggled. There was a difference in them that could be noticed. Either way, I looked at them and said wow that is something courageous that they are doing. It takes courage to practice our Lenten practices. And there are going to be failures at it. We are sinners after all, and we can’t do it on our own. I think that my classmates in the seminary who made it through Lent without eating meat really learned to rely on God. Can you imagine eating three meals a day with others who were eating meat (except for Fridays). It would be most difficult. I never really heard these guys complain, nor did I see them say something like “look at me, I am fasting from meat.” They were entering Lent to grow closer to God. They were sacrificing meat or whatever to do this. These guys were focused on living the Gospel in all of its radicalness. Our Lenten practices are here to help us grow in our dependence on God. They are never to be a focus on us. Rather, they are to aid us in trusting in our Lord. Lent is here to guide us to Christ. So we are given these practices to help us to follow Jesus who died on the Cross so that we may be prepared to go to Heaven when we die.
Fr. Thomas P. Galarneault