+ The Holy Season of Lent is upon us! The object of these next six weeks is to focus in on the most important gift that has ever been offered to human beings ever: the forgiveness of sin and the promise of everlasting life for those who meet certain conditions.
Both of these things have everything to do with the death and resurrection of the only God-Man born on the face of the earth: JESUS CHRIST! And so we will spend these weeks looking at Jesus – looking into his heart – looking into his mind – looking into his motivation – looking into his amazing plan for our redemption!
In order to get the most out of our search, however, we need to acknowledge the existence of and validity of certain spiritual laws. A spiritual search requires spiritual tools. In the gospel passage today, Jesus and the Church suggests three: giving alms, praying and fasting. If we can rely on the fact that these activities have a God-given and insured dynamic built into them then by the end of Lent we shall have had a deep spiritual change of some sort within us – within our hearts, and minds and souls. We will have "opened the door of our lives a little bit more this year than ever before – and invited Jesus in more deeply than in the past!" And maybe he will "walk right in…"
And so we have: giving alms – giving from our want, not our surplus – for the good of others who are quite literally poor and needy, this even if we ourselves are poor and needy. This causes a spiritual sensation that can only be described as deeply satisfying and liberating – and rightly so – this is the way God designed it!
Next there is prayer – giving God some time and quiet so that both we and he can communicate as family members would. He is our Father – we are his children – Jesus is our brother – there is much chat and conversation that could be going on like never before. The Blessed Trinity is Three Persons – like you are a person, and I am a person. Connect with them as you would another other person. If these three are not in your "circle of friends" then you, my friend, may be in big trouble!
And lastly there is fasting – giving something up – not just on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday – but on some regular sort of schedule during the Lenten Season. Self-denial is one of those spiritual tools that is meant to sharpen our focus on what is really important. If we stop clawing and grasping and hanging on to things of all sorts: then we can open our hands and receive what God has to freely give us. So this practice of conscious self-denial – fasting – is very important. Jesus himself fasted for forty days – the exact length of Lent – and this is no coincidence. He did this just before he launched into his public ministry and mission of saving our souls! By the end of his Lent he knew exactly what was important and what wasn't. Your salvation and mine were it! And we ought to be very grateful! Very grateful indeed! Grateful enough to imitate Jesus and spend forty days of some kind of "giving up" to "get ready" for the astounding events of Holy Week!
There you have it: almsgiving
(using the Alms Pot – beginning its second year of existence – having been contributed to in a truly commendable way this past year – we have helped a lot of people with the money collected) or other types of almsgiving; prayer and fasting! Use these spiritual tools faithfully for the next six weeks and you will have the best Holy Week and Easter ever!
God bless you!
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