I hate Lent. I always have. To me, it’s always been a time when I meant to do so much more than I ever achieved and Easter came leaving me feeling like I didn’t deserve it. I hadn’t prepared my soul and I did the fasting and the praying and the mourning with a grumbling heart. For me, Lent was always a time for self-denial, and I couldn’t see past the sacrifice. However, the more I try to understand love, the more I’m realizing that Lent could be so so so much more than I’m giving it credit for.
It could be resplendent.
The key is engaging my heart, understanding the love behind the sacrifice, and I believe the key to that is taking the time to prepare for Lent before Ash Wednesday so that I can be ready to accept the hard stuff with grace. This is the first year I’ve tried this, and also the first year I’ve tried something besides giving up a favorite treat or my snooze button or praying a decade of the rosary every day. (While these are all good things, they didn’t get me anywhere closer to Christ, which I believe to be the point of Lent).
This year I’ve invested in two books, both which offer daily meditations specifically for Lent, focusing on two different aspects of God and our faith. Shoutout to The Littlest Way for the recommendations! I also learned that the St. Louis de Monfort preparation for Marian Consecration starts on February 21st, and after some prayer I’ve made the decision to do that as well.
Anyway, I figured that now would be a good time to start preparing for Lent, as it’s only a week and a half away. I read the introductions to both books and the preparation (I’ve chosen to do Fr. Michael Gaitley’s 33 Days to Morning Glory instead of the traditional preparation), and I have to say that for the first time in my life, I’m excited for Lent.
From Rediscover Lent by Mathew Kelly:
My favorite passage from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) appears as the first line of the first chapter, and it reads, “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for” (CCC #1).
God never ceases to draw man to himself. So. Beautiful.
From Reflections on the Passion by Charles Hugo Doyle:
LOVE moves and governs all things. Tell me what you love, and I shall tell you what you are. If your love is for the world, you are its slave. If your love is for Jesus Christ, you are free…
Jesus Christ alone is worthy of your whole heart. But you cannot love Him if you do not know Him…We must know the details of His sufferings, if we would know the excess of His love.
Jesus Christ ALONE is worthy of your whole heart. Often I get frustrated about not feeling love, not being at peace or passionate about Christ. I feel lukewarm. But how am I supposed to love Him if I do not know Him? Really, truly love Him?
From 33 Days to Morning Glory by Fr. Michael E. Gaitley, MIC:
So, it’s Mary’s great God-given task, in union with and by the power of the Holy Spirit, to form every human being into “another Christ,”…Therefore, every human being is invited to rest in the womb of Mary and be transformed there, by the power of the Holy Spirit, more perfectly into Christ’s image.
In other words, as Ven. Fulton Sheen so powerfully puts it:
Can you not see that if Christ Himself willed to be physically formed in [Mary] for nine months and then be spiritually formed by her for 30 years, it is to her that we must go to learn how to have Christ formed in us?
Only she who raised Christ can raise a Christian.
Only she who raised Christ can raise a Christian.
BOOM. MARY. JESUS. LENT.
Amata Bene 