It seems as though Ash Wednesday and Lent are coming upon us
very early this year. So, this got me to thinking about it. It is
very interesting that Ash Wednesday comes shortly after last Sunday’s Gospel
reading where Jesus was speaking to his home synagogue in Nazareth. And,
he tells the congregants after reading from a scroll of Isaiah that today that
passage of the Scripture has been fulfilled in their hearing. Soon, his
neighbors said in essence, hey, wait a minute isn’t that the son of
Joseph? Of course, their meaning was that they knew his parents and saw
him grow up and Jesus could not possibly be the Messiah. Soon, their
discontent became anger and they tried to throw him off the top of the
hill. How would we react if someone who we saw grow up, who was the son
of poor parents and whose father was a laborer, got up in Mass and made the
same claim? Would we accept him or her as a prophet or holy
person or would we do, as the Nazarean congregants, and scoff him or her out of
the church?
As we have our so-called fling on Fat Tuesday, do we ever
think why this is done? It is because the next day is to begin 40 days of
deprivation to commemorate the 40 days spent in the desert by Jesus as he
fasted and prayed. In paragraph 540 of the Catechism of the Catholic
Church it says of this, “By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites
herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert.” So, on Fat
Tuesday, people seem to believe they need to self-indulge before the 40 days of
fasting.
Let me know what you think.
Let the light of our Lord shine upon you!
REM (Ray Makowski) Co-Founder, Director and
Secretary-Treasurer
Your new blog is a welcome "assignment" to look within. Thinking about and anticipating Lent, we recall that it consists of 40 days (plus 6 Sundays)between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. The word "lent" stems from the Anglo-Saxon word for "spring," which comes from "lengthen" as the days lengthen leading us into the season of springtime. For most Christians, as it was for Jesus, it is a period of fasting and abstinence. It is a time to rethink our relationship to God and our understanding of ourselves. As we contemplate the Resurrection of Jesus, we relate to our own "resurrection" experiences. We can come to appreciate our spiritual awareness, the old patterns of thinking and expressing we release, and the wonderful possibilities of "spring: that lie before us.
ReplyDeleteWould we recognize Jesus if he came before us today? Sadly, probably not, unless we recognize the divine within ourselves first. It is a journey we must undertake again and again with the break of each day, "walking the walk" and attempting to stay upon the path.
A nice, deep blog that I appreciate. Thanks for sharing!