Manere in Christo: Sticking with Jesus

We are well into Lent at this point, and if you are like me, you have hit some bumps in the road during this Lenten journey.  It is not always easy to keep up our Lenten promises.  I will be the first to admit that I sometimes find it very difficult to stick with the sacrifices I promised to make during Lent, and I have a feeling that I am not the only one in that situation.  However, we know from Sunday’s readings that the Lord is close to us in our struggles.  He hears our prayers and calls us to come back to Him. Coming back to God.  That is what Lent is about.  Lent is the time each year when God calls us back to Him.  He calls us to repentance.  He calls us to reorient our lives towards Him.  God knows that this is a radical call, and He is patient with us.  He knows that we will often fall and struggle.  As we hear in the first reading, God comes to us in our struggles and difficulties.  When the Israelites were being persecuted in Egypt, God revealed Himself to Moses and

                Today may be one of the busiest days of the year for churches, and it may be the one day of the year that many people even attend a church service.   Today begins our Lenten Fast in preparation for Easter.   Today we receive ashes on our foreheads as a reminder that we are sinners and are called to repentance.                 The ashes we receive today are not just a way to show off that you went to church.   These ashes say to the world, “I am a sinner, and I am in need of salvation!”   They are an outward symbol of our need for Christ’s mercy in our live.   They should also be an outward sign of our willingness to realign our heart to God.                 We hear the Prophet Joel in the first reading exhorting the people, “Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God” (Joel 2: 12-13a).   These words should resound in our lives, too