Weekly Reflection – A Holy Lent?

So, how’s Lent going for you? A week and a half in I do hope that whatever Lenten discipline you’ve set yourself this year is proving fruitful – in a spiritual way, at least. If you’re anything like me, however, you’ll have had all sorts of plans for abstinence, devotional reading, time for prayer, and so forth but as soon as Ash Wednesday came round will have put none of them into practice. Life, unfortunately, has an unhelpful habit of intervening and distracting us from such good intentions.

Whilst it might be tempting to pile on the guilt for not observing Lent as strictly as we intended, is the resulting sense of miserable failure really what Lent’s all about? A friend of a friend gets outrageously angry every year at the concept of fasting. Fasting simply makes him hungry, miserable, and extremely grumpy. He cannot understand why God would wish to inflict such ‘torture’ on Christians as a means of deepening their faith, yet because fasting is mentioned in the Bible and in our liturgy at this time of year he feels obligated to try it. And each year the inevitable failure to fast for even one day, and the resulting rage and (it’s no exaggeration) hatred towards the concept of fasting, causes far more damage to his spiritual life and to his relationship with God than not fasting in the first place.

Perhaps a better way of looking at maintaining a Lenten discipline – at least, for those of us who struggle – and at how we are called to reflect on our Christian lives and renew our relationship with God and with those around us is to consider this passage from the prophet Micah:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
   and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
   and to walk humbly with your God?

As we journey through the forty days and nights of Lent we could do worse than strive for what is right, be caring and generous to those around us, and give ourselves trustingly and faithfully to God. I can think of no better preparation for Easter.

In Christ,
Canon Kathryn