Ash Wednesday is here, Lent is upon us.
St. Benedict reminds us that, “Always we begin again.”
I enjoy Lent. I really do appreciate Lent. I have for the most part, most always appreciated Lent. I very much so, embrace St. Benedict’s thought that we do, “…always begin again.” We start again a new season of our liturgical year. We start a new 40 days of Lent each year.
Always we begin again.
Traditionally these days are considered a time of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Many of us, will attend services today in our places of worship. We will be signed with ashes (the remaining palms from Palm Sunday’s of past that have been burned). We hear those words; “Repent and live into the Gospel”; “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return”; or some similar version. We will have a cross singed on our foreheads with the ashes. It is a visible sign of our mortality and inevitable death. It reminds us that, we are moving closer to Jesus’ passion and death.
Always we begin again. This Lent, I will have the opportunity to begin again in my journey to finding a life centered on prayer, reading Scripture and attending Mass with more attentiveness. I will have the opportunity to begin again on a life centered on fasting. I will fast from gluttony as well as from the behaviors that do not reflect that I am living into my baptism. I will have the opportunity to begin again with the sharing of all that I have or what little I have, for the greater good.
Always we begin again. I trust that God sees this Lenten beginning as a new beginning for myself as well. I can begin again, to live as God calls me. I can begin again, to live with a new and restored love and care for others. I can begin again, to live with a new love and care for myself.
And when I hit the days that I feel I have not honored my commitment for Lent…always I will begin again. With each new day, I will begin again to live with prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
My prayer and wish for each of us during this journey of Lent is that we move forward in our journey of faith. That we move with a sense of opportunity and confidence in this spiritual journey before us. My prayer is that in the words of St. Benedict, we “always begin again.”
believe n love,
Geralyn
Geralyn Nathe-Evans has been called to the vocations of wife, mom, Lay Ecclesial Minister, nurse and friend.