I only have time for a ten-minute post, so I will try to keep this brief.
The season of Lent is upon us and, personally, it is one of my favorite times of year. In this season, the Church calls us more so than usual, to a life of conversion.
The life of a Catholic is a life of conversion. We are called to constantly strive to make tomorrow better than yesterday and the next day better than that. We are called to constantly look at our lives and then look at our model- Jesus Christ. He is perfect but we are not. We are called to constantly seek the perfection that we claim in using the name Christian.
The beauty of this season is that the entire Church takes a moment to breathe- to step back. We all look at ourselves and realize that none of us are close to reaching the goal. That’s okay though. That’s okay because God, in his infinite mercy, acknowledges that life is not simply about how perfect we are on the last day but the struggle and path we take to get there. Some of us have it easier than others; I have been complaining a lot as of late, but truth be told, the life of a white, male, student of meager means who calls a community like the University Catholic Center home does not have to face nearly the struggles of, for example, people in Africa trying to celebrate their faith as a priest or two is killed every other month for simply being a priest.
Back to the point, God, in his infinite mercy and love, knows that despite our failures we maintain a faith in him. We may forget the feeling of that faith, but it is still there. The season of Lent is the Church’s acknowledgement that, though we are sinners, we strive towards the everlasting life offered to us by Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. The celebration of the offering of Christ’s life and his following resurrection is the culmination of this season of Lent. We are preparing ourselves to stand before God while remembering the most sacred of events. Christ institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood on the night before he died. His death. His rising to new life. But, while we can never truly understand the mysteries that these events contain, we can not understand on even a merely human level, the mystery of those events without inner conversion and peace.
As we continually convert ourselves from the focus of this world to the focus of the next, we are continually preparing ourselves to experience the mysteries of Christ. Our conversions do not need to be great and grand all the time. While it is laudable and indeed quite a blessing when someone makes a grand conversion from complete darkness to light- someone, for example, who had previously been unchurched now entering into the light of Christianity- our conversions in our daily life are seldom ever going to be such huge events.
We hear in the lives of the Saints of many members of the Church Triumphant who led horrible lives of sin, found a great moment of conversion and then continued life being the greatest of all believers on earth. All of us, those who have had made great conversions and those who have not, are called to seek our sanctity in a much more subtle way. We are called to take each moment of every day and make it a moment of conversion. We fail in this and we are not perfect, but we are called to make forward progress.
The season of Lent is a natural season to remind us of that. The organic nature of Lent and Easter calls us to convert ourselves followed by great jubilation. This relationship, between acknowledging failures and celebrating the grace given by God, is what the Church constantly calls us towards- inside and outside of Lent.
During this holy season, through the grace of God, may we be filled with every strength and blessing so that we can live our lives as a constant conversion towards Christ.
The season of Lent is upon us and, personally, it is one of my favorite times of year. In this season, the Church calls us more so than usual, to a life of conversion.
The life of a Catholic is a life of conversion. We are called to constantly strive to make tomorrow better than yesterday and the next day better than that. We are called to constantly look at our lives and then look at our model- Jesus Christ. He is perfect but we are not. We are called to constantly seek the perfection that we claim in using the name Christian.
The beauty of this season is that the entire Church takes a moment to breathe- to step back. We all look at ourselves and realize that none of us are close to reaching the goal. That’s okay though. That’s okay because God, in his infinite mercy, acknowledges that life is not simply about how perfect we are on the last day but the struggle and path we take to get there. Some of us have it easier than others; I have been complaining a lot as of late, but truth be told, the life of a white, male, student of meager means who calls a community like the University Catholic Center home does not have to face nearly the struggles of, for example, people in Africa trying to celebrate their faith as a priest or two is killed every other month for simply being a priest.
Back to the point, God, in his infinite mercy and love, knows that despite our failures we maintain a faith in him. We may forget the feeling of that faith, but it is still there. The season of Lent is the Church’s acknowledgement that, though we are sinners, we strive towards the everlasting life offered to us by Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. The celebration of the offering of Christ’s life and his following resurrection is the culmination of this season of Lent. We are preparing ourselves to stand before God while remembering the most sacred of events. Christ institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood on the night before he died. His death. His rising to new life. But, while we can never truly understand the mysteries that these events contain, we can not understand on even a merely human level, the mystery of those events without inner conversion and peace.
As we continually convert ourselves from the focus of this world to the focus of the next, we are continually preparing ourselves to experience the mysteries of Christ. Our conversions do not need to be great and grand all the time. While it is laudable and indeed quite a blessing when someone makes a grand conversion from complete darkness to light- someone, for example, who had previously been unchurched now entering into the light of Christianity- our conversions in our daily life are seldom ever going to be such huge events.
We hear in the lives of the Saints of many members of the Church Triumphant who led horrible lives of sin, found a great moment of conversion and then continued life being the greatest of all believers on earth. All of us, those who have had made great conversions and those who have not, are called to seek our sanctity in a much more subtle way. We are called to take each moment of every day and make it a moment of conversion. We fail in this and we are not perfect, but we are called to make forward progress.
The season of Lent is a natural season to remind us of that. The organic nature of Lent and Easter calls us to convert ourselves followed by great jubilation. This relationship, between acknowledging failures and celebrating the grace given by God, is what the Church constantly calls us towards- inside and outside of Lent.
During this holy season, through the grace of God, may we be filled with every strength and blessing so that we can live our lives as a constant conversion towards Christ.
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