Finding God During Lent

      The Lenten season has a double character, namely to prepare both the catechumens and faithful to celebrate the paschal mystery of Easter. Just as Spring is a time of rebirth and renewal, so the six weeks of Lent afford us an opportunity to renew our relationship with God by prayer and fasting and with others by works of charity. It is a time for healing.
            Some things in life are mutually exclusive. If you have one, you can’t have the other. To choose this is to automatically reject that. For example, you can’t be two places at the same time. If you choose to spend your vacation in the mountains of Colorado, you can’t spend it on the beaches of Hawaii. That’s a geographical impossibility. When you select one, you refuse the other.

          There is an old adage that says, "You can’t have your cake and eat it too." It’s talking about this same thing. The action of eating the cake eliminates the possibility of keeping the cake. We have to choose one or the other; we can’t have it both ways.

          In Matthew 5:20-26, the Gospel reading for Friday March 17, Jesus talks about two spiritual possibilities that are mutually exclusive. He says it like this: "If you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift; go first to be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift." In other words, we can’t worship God and abuse people at the same time. We can do one, or we can do the other; but we can’t have it both ways. The reason for this is because God also loves the person whom we are treating unfairly. This is something that we tend to forget.

           Our lives are involved with all kinds of people, and we react to them in different ways. Some of them we find pleasant, some unpleasant. Some of them are easy to get along with; others seem impossible to get along with. However, how can we mistreat a person and sincerely worship the God who loves us, both at the same time?

          Suppose you have a child who out of one side of his mouth is saying cruel things to his brother; out of the other side declaring his love for you. Could you handle that? Could you just close your eyes to the abuses? Could you pass those abuses off and pretend they were not real? The answer is obvious. Of course, you could not. In the same way, we cannot offer meaningful worship to God and deal out abuse to another person at the same time. We can do one, or we can do the other; but we can’t have it both ways. Another reason we cannot do that is because God loves us. And his love is much more than a sentimental affection.  God’s love is a strong and creative devotion. He not only wants the best for us, he expects the best from us.

         There is a moral dimension to the love of God. He cares too much to sit by and watch while one of his children becomes little and deceitful, unfair and unkind. He cannot accept our worship knowing all the while that we are mistreating someone else. For him to do so would encourage a continuation of that behavior, and he loves us too much to let that happen. So that is why Jesus teaches us to first be reconciled.

         Therefore, use Lent as a time to heal all broken and bruised relationships.  Make Lent a new Springtime with God by loving those whom he loves.