“Repent
and Believe in the Gospel.” Jesus
proclaimed those words to the people of Ancient Israel. He still
proclaims those words today as we come to our Ash Wednesday mass, as we receive
a smudge of ash on our forehead. We live
in a world with so many mixed messages, but so many people are searching for
something more in their lives. Many people in our modern world are drawn to
Jesus and his proclamation of God’s kingdom in their search for meaning and
their search for something in their lives. Maybe
that is why so many flock to our churches on Ash Wednesday at the beginning of
this Holy season of Lent.
“Be
merciful O Lord, for we have sinned.” We come
to the Lord today with the words of the psalm reverberating in our hearts. We come
to this Holy season of Lent to look inside of ourselves to see how God is
calling us to change our lives, to see where God is leading us and calling us
as we journey with Jesus on his way to the cross. No
matter where we are on our journey, we are on a search for God in our lives. Our
theme this Lent is “Seeking God in All Things.” We seek God
in whatever we are going through in our lives – through the joys and the
sorrows, through the silence and the noise, through our questions, our hopes,
and our dreams. And we
are to seek God through the devotions of our Church – through the way we pray
to God on our knees, through the way we journey with Jesus in the prayers of
the Stations of the Cross, through the things we give up during Lent, and
through the way we reach out to our neighbor in works of charity. The
Gospel today mentions prayer, fasting, and works of charity – these are the
traditional Lenten disciplines that the Church calls us to live out. This
little magnifying glass you receive today is a reminder of how we are to seek
God in all things. Seeking
him to recognize his presence with us every step of the way. We pray
that this Lenten season be a meaning part of our journey of faith this year.
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