March 10, 2011

I like being invited to parties and interacting with my friends and family. In Lent we are invited to contemplate. But what should a person think about, even if that person is not a believer? Well, it makes sense to me to wonder about the state into which we, as humans, have gotten ourselves. We fight over who is the strongest, best looking, richest, most influential, smartest, best educated, etc. The list could go on for a long time.

What follows is the reason for observance of Lent. Please read and think seriously about the invitation, even if you do not believe.

Dear People of God:

The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and
meditating on God’s holy Word. And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.