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Amigos w/ Common Interests
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Each Lent, we enter a spiritual wilderness. It is meant to be a challenging time - a time to develop a spiritual maturity.
We live in an age when the importance of having our needs met is recognised - but as Christians, we sometimes have to remember that, ultimately, our needs can only be fulfilled by God.
In Lent, we try, like Jesus, to set our “wants” to one side - and also try to set our needs in their proper context. We may fast - or deny ourselves - or perceive that we are to give time and attention to something we often neglect (like prayer!). Whatever it is, there is a long way ahead - and we will be tempted to give up - what is the point of it when the rest of the world is full of ways of making life comfortable?
But we are not “denying ourselves” to make ourselves miserable but to challenge ourselves: just what does my being a son or daughter of God mean?
Just where do my priorities lie?
What do I actually need - and how many of my “needs” turn out to be wants?
Sometimes the only way to find out is to try to live without them for a while!
The Season of Lent was instituted in the 4th century as a period of
fasting and repentance in preparation for Easter. In the Eastern
churches, Lent lasts the eight weeks before Easter except for
Saturdays and Sundays which are regarded as festival days. In the
Western churches, the 40-day period begins on Ash Wednesday and
extends, with the exception of Sundays, to the Easter Vigil on Holy
Saturday, the day before Easter. The observance of fasting and other
forms of self-denial during Lent varies within Protestant and Anglican
churches where the emphasis is on penitence. Recent changes in Roman
Catholic practices have relaxed that church's laws on fasting too. Since
1966, fasting and abstinence are obligatory only on Ash Wednesday and Good
Friday.
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