This coming Wednesday we will celebrate Ash Wednesday. Thus begins the season of Lent, the annual period of 40 days that must play an important role in our Catholic faith life.

 

Lent is meant to be a time for us to be shaken out of one of the great temptations against faith. That is, our tendency to become routine, overly-familiar or just plain too comfortable in the struggle for heaven.

 

Seen from the prospective of eternity, our life in this world seems like the shortest of blips. But as we live through it here and now, life can seem long and even burdensome. 

 

Jesus of course was very aware of this aspect of human nature — “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Mt. 11:28).

 

Part of the labor and burden that we bear is the struggle constantly to seek what is good and to avoid sin. But because of the damage of original sin in each of us, we have to fight the inclination to limit or avoid that struggle.

 

We are tempted to grow comfortable with sin instead of seeking ever deeper friendship and union with Jesus. Each day of life we must continue to renew our commitment to our first baptismal promise, renewed each Easter and when we are confirmed. “Do you renounce Satan and all his works and empty promises?” 

 

Instead, we are tempted to rationalize and accept or justify our sinfulness. We can find Jesus’ teaching to seem too hard or too contrary to the values of the world. 

 

And in truth, the constant bombardment from the media and celebrities of our day tries to reinforce the sense that faith in Jesus Christ is something of the past, out of touch with modern life.

 

We are also at times tempted to discouragement. We can gather the feeling that we are too deep into some commitment, relationship or element of our life that we recognize as sinful. We can feel helpless to be done with what we know to be wrong and what bothers our conscience.

 

In this context, Lent is precisely a season of hope and renewal. 

 

We are made to be with the Holy Trinity in heaven for all time. Our growth in love and desire for God matches our letting go of sin and the evil that holds us back. 

 

That is why the very first words of the first reading at the Mass of Ash Wednesday are, “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart” (Joel 21:12).

 

That is the Lenten message of hope. Because God gives us that call to return to Him, we can do it. And God will give us the grace to overcome our fears, our discouragement and our attachment to sin.

 

The way to enter into the Lenten season is to start right at the beginning. 

 

Come to Mass on Ash Wednesday. Receive your ashes and be reminded of the limitations of this life and of the coming meeting each of us will have with Christ.

 

Pick some element of penance or work on your spiritual life. Then commit to it for the coming 40 days. 

Remember the Lenten obligation to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday for those between 18 and 59. Embrace abstaining from meat on the Fridays of Lent. 

 

Choose a day each week and come to an extra Mass during Lent.

 

Finally, make sure that confession is a part of your Lenten practice. This year, once again, the Diocese of Rockford will celebrate Be Reconciled Day when confessions will be available throughout the diocese from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

 

St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2). That perfectly describes Lent 2018.