Saturday 17 February 2024

Lent can feel like a gloomy time, just as Advent can feel exciting and full of anticipation. Yet the word Lent means Spring, and this season is about encountering new life within ourselves and our world. How have these Lenten readings been a call to renewal for you?

Our first reading of the week offered a vivid image of those doubting God and lacking trust as being ‘double-minded and unstable’, like a wave of the sea, ‘driven and tossed by the wind’. But it speaks of endurance bringing with it maturity and fulfilment. What has been your experience of doubt and of endurance?

Ash Wednesday’s reading is a call to interiority, to growing in faith, hope and love in the presence of our God ‘who knows all that is done in secret’. How did you find yourself responding to this invitation?

The thought of a God ‘who knows all that is done in secret’ could be frightening for some people. How does that idea of God make you feel? Are there any secrets you want to share or fear sharing with God?

Have there been particular graces that you have found yourself asking for as Lent begins? Take some time to reconnect with your desires and hopes or your anxieties and fears. What renewal is God inviting you to this Lent?

Lent prepares us to enter into the mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus at Easter. Is there anything in your life you would like to see an end to, or the courage to begin? Take time now to say what is in your heart to God, asking for whatever grace seems most needful.

You have given all to me
To you Lord, I return it
Everything is Yours
Do with it what you will
Give me only your love and your grace
That, is enough for me.
Amen.