Longing for Lent

Trying to write a blog every day is a very new experience for me. I am somewhat amused (bemused?) to discover that during the course of the day I will think, “Oh - that would make a good blog topic!” Then the day moves on and I forget what it was. It is not unlike having a brilliant idea in the middle of the night and waking with the realization that it has vanished.

And yet I also have been sensing a kind of grace as I sit down each day; when it’s time to write, a thought or reflection is there, ready to come out.  That may be partly due to my overflowing heart: in fact, sometimes I think I have too much to say, and then I struggle with where to start.

This is only my fourth observance of Lent. Well, I suppose that’s not strictly true. There were times in my non-Catholic past when I tried to do something special before Easter - coming from, I think, a deep-down realization that it should be commemorated in some special way, that it needed some kind of careful preparation. In general, my previous experience of Easter was that it felt like any other Sunday, despite others’ attempts to be extra-jovial on that day. However, one year, shortly after I graduated from college, I fasted (juice only) for the entire week before Easter; I remember that Easter as touching me deeply.

When I “discovered” Lent in 2007 it resonated with my spirit, even though I was not really sure what to do or how to make it meaningful. But I did recognize that this was what I had been longing for my whole Christian life: a way to accompany Jesus on his journey to the Cross before Easter; a way to enter more fully, more deeply into the Passion of Christ; a way to experience my need and his great gift not only intellectually but in a profoundly physical – incarnational – and spiritual way. That is this journey of love called Lent. That is why it matters to me so much, and why, as one way to grow in my practice of Lent, I decided to blog about it! Thanks for joining me.