Forty Days With The Lord
by Rev. Michael F. Dogali
How will you spend the next forty days of Lent? For some Christians it means one turns sad for forty days. From the ashes on your forehead to the anguished cry of Christ on the cross, Lent seems to be a downer. What are we supposed to do in the next forty days?
Lent is for listening. You listen to God, let God talk! And the Lord can talk to you in so many ways, not only when the Scriptures are ready to you, but through life itself - through Claude Debussy and Celine Dion, through AIDS victims and the homeless, through wealth and poverty, power and helplessness, fame and humiliation. But your ears must be open, attune to God’s whisper as well as his thunder. We recoil before the atrocities of war, gang crime, domestic violence and catastrophic illness. Unless we personally and immediately are touched by suffering, it is easy to read Scripture and to walk away without contacting the redemptive suffering that makes us holy. The reality of the Word falls on deaf ears.
This Lent, let’s take the time to be present to someone who suffers. Sharing the pain of a fellow human will enliven Scripture and help us to enter into the holy mystery of the redemptive suffering of Christ. Let’s resolve to make this Lent holy by participating in the liturgical services of the Church, not just by attending, but by preparing, by studying the readings, entering into the Spirit, offering our services as ministers of the Word or Eucharist, decorating the church or preparing the environment for worship. Let’s praise the Lord with our whole heart and soul and mind and strength, uniting with the suffering Church throughout the world. Let’s break bread together, let’s relive the holy and redemptive mystery. Let’s do it in memory of Christ, acknowledging in faith His real presence upon our altars.
Maybe we will resolve to make this Lent holy by sharing holy peace and joy within our families, sharing family prayer on a regular basis, making every meal a holy meal where loving conversations bond family members in unity, sharing family work without grumbling, asking forgiveness for past hurts and forgiving one another from the heart, seeking to go all the way for love as Jesus went all the way for love. Why not make this Lent holy by sharing with the needy, the alienated, the lonely, the sick and afflicted, the untouchable? Let’s unite our sufferings, inconveniences and annoyances with the sufferings of Jesus. Let’s stretch ourselves, going beyond our comfort zones to unite ourselves with Christ’s redemptive work.
The world does not need men and women who abstain from Hershey Bars. The world needs men and women who abstain from selfishness, from indifference and from self-absorption. I mean an absorption in yourself where you take yourself all too seriously, where the days and nights revolve around you, your heartache, your successes and failures, your problems and frustrations. Instead of worrying about giving up during, why not concentrate on giving, giving yourself. Lent is the time to do just that.
Lent is the time when people come home to the Church and they do it in different ways. Some go to confession in Lent and come to realize that "the box" is not for bad people, but for good people who want to be better. Some attend Mass every day during Lent. Can it be difficult? Of course! But if the Mass is the single most significant source of strength for human living, if the Eucharist is the heart and soul of Catholic spirituality, dare you limit the Mass to days of sheer obligation? Lent is a time when people meet on Friday nights to pray the Stations of the Cross so that Christ will come to them on their crosses. Lent is a time of conversion and listening. What are we going to do in the next forty days? We’re going to let go, let go of ourselves and glorify God with our good works.
Not a bad way to spend Lent.