The holy Season of Lent is a time for spiritual action. We are called to fast and to abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays of Lent. We are urged to give to the poor in a particular way during these 40 days of penance.

 

And of course as part of our Lenten practice we should be sure to avail ourselves of the great sacrament of forgiveness, confession. Please check your parish bulletin for the times when confessors are available.

 

Please remember also that the annual Be Reconciled Day in the Diocese of Rockford, when confessions are heard throughout the day in our parishes, will be  April 1. Especially if you have been away from confession for a long time, I invite you to come and be reconciled on that day.

 

Of course Lent is not only a time for the actions of penance. It is also a time for prayer and reflection. The whole season of Lent is pointing toward Holy Week and toward walking with Jesus in His passion. That theme should guide our prayer life during Lent.

 

An excellent help for our Lenten prayers are the Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary. Those five moments in the life of Jesus are: The Agony in the Garden, The Scourging at the Pillar, The Crowning with Thorns, The Carrying of the Cross and the Crucifixion.

 

For the first week of Lent, we might then ponder Jesus’s agony in the garden. Both spiritually and as part of our humanity it is a remarkable scene.

 

Jesus has just finished the Last Supper. He then goes to the Mount of Olives with the 11 (Judas has left to betray Him). Jesus then divides the 11 by taking Peter, James and John further on with Him as He prays to His Father in preparation for His suffering and death for us.

 

A worthwhile Lenten prayer exercise is to join ourselves to both Jesus and to the three Apostles in that moment. What can we learn? And what can we do to be one with Jesus?

 

We might consider first that, like Peter, James and John, we too are invited to be there. Jesus took those three special friends. It seems that in His humanity He longed for their company in that moment of His particularly mental and spiritual anguish.

 

When we think of suffering we often focus almost exclusively on physical pain. For Jesus, that was to follow. But how often is human suffering one of spiritual loss or emotional distress? We all experience it. Jesus in His humanity shared it with us too. 

 

That itself is a great consolation. But this scene shows Christ’s own awareness of how difficult it can be to suffer alone.

 

Jesus also prays, asking if the Father might remove the coming suffering. Still, He places Himself in the hands of His Father, whatever God’s will might be.

 

Here too is a Lenten lesson. In moments of suffering or challenge in our lives, the prayer and acceptance of Jesus, hard as that was even for Him, shows us the path to follow.

 

Finally, Peter, James and John have been invited to be part of a unique spiritual moment in the history of salvation. But they sleep, unable to rise to the challenge.

 

We are given many temptations in life. Each is the work of Satan trying to draw us away from Jesus. We too are tempted to give in to ease any weakness instead of asking for the grace to remain awake and to resist evil.

 

Each of us can add our own thoughts in reflecting on this great scene of Gethsemane. But being one with Jesus in the Agony in the Garden is an excellent starter for our Lenten practice.