Bairbre Cahill
My 17-year-old son announced recently that the timing of Lent is perfect this year. He will arrive at the first match of the senior Gaelic football season without having a crisp, biscuit or sweet in his system for seven weeks!
We both know that there is more to Lent than help with the pre-season training but it is easy to get caught up in the additional benefits. I find myself wondering if by the end of Lent, I may have lost a few pounds!
I often find myself daunted at the beginning of Lent. It reminds me of looking at a steep and rocky mountain path, knowing I want to do the hike, aware it won’t be easy but that ultimately it will be worth it.
Whatever I give up, and however hard I may find that, the biggest challenge for me is creating space. It seems to me that unless I do that, unless I think and reflect a wee bit more during these weeks, then I have missed the point.
The readings for Mass through the week and on Sundays all through Lent are beautiful and powerful. There is an intensity to the scripture we are offered, which gathered together over Lent, offers us a profound insight into who Jesus is and what it means for us to follow him.
There was a line in the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent which struck me: “The kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.” What are we being asked to repent of? Selfishness and sinfulness no doubt but also perhaps a failure to believe the Good News, a failure to recognise the kingdom of God that surrounds us.
We had a visiting priest in our parish recently who spoke about the need to hear the good news that happens around us and not just to hear it but to be a source of good news for others. That call to recognise and be Good News is something that any of us could take up as a challenge for Lent.
This Sunday’s Gospel is the story of the Transfiguration. Jesus is transfigured but those with him are transformed by the experience too. It becomes part of who they are and although it may get lost in the fear and chaos of what happens when Jesus is arrested and crucified, the experience reasserts itself at the resurrection and forms part of what sends Peter, James and John out to share the Good News of Jesus Christ.
The readings for each day are available on line at https://www.catholicireland.net/readings/ If you have time, it is worth reading all the readings for any given day because the connection between them is particularly clear and powerful in Lent.
Question
Maybe in light of those readings a question for us on this Lenten journey is “What difference does it make?” Are we open to being challenged and transformed by the Word of God? Are we prepared to reflect on the implications for our own lives? As the journey draws closer to Jerusalem with the menacing threat that brings we are invited to consider what it means for us now, today, to be followers of Jesus.
That depth of reflection may not be going on for us as a family round the dinner table but it can help to shape the conversations we are having there. Why are we giving up anything? Why is the Trócaire box part of Lent for us? Why might there be more simplicity to our meals once or twice a week or on days of Fast and Abstinence? Why would we think of a wee bit more time for prayer or the possibility of going to Mass more often?
All these questions and more lead back to what it means for us to be Christians, Catholics, what it means to allow the Good News of Jesus to transform us so that we can become Good News for others.