When I was in 8th grade I had a particularly moving Lenten experience. I'm sure I had given up sweets or some trifle thing like that, but I also made a commitment to read the Bible - a chapter a day. To no surprise, I don't think either exercise made that particular Lent the spiritually reinvigorating season that it was. Neither was praying a decade of the rosary a night.
Don't mistake me. I think reading the Bible is a great thing... I'm a scripture student, it's kind of what I'm into. And having some gastronomical discipline ain't so bad either. My point is that, aside from being an anomalously over-pious adolescent, Lent kindled something within me which, despite my best efforts, I have never been able to reduplicate any other year. With that in mind, it is fair to say that all the spiritual reading, and all the rosaries, and all the sugary denials don't make the season... what?
What was it then that made those forty days and forty nights different than all the others of previous and subsequent years? Was it merely youthful piety? It's possible. Did God simply pour out a double-portion of grace to me that year? First of all, I am loath to think that grace is a thing which can be quantified. Second, is not God's grace (in whatever non-quantifiable terms you can imagine it now that I've dug myself a hole) equally present and freely offered. That leaves me to believe that, while indeed the Spirit itself is the source and cause of all Lenten joy, one's disposition, openness and receptivity makes all the difference.
I suppose in 8th grade I was thirsting for conversion in my life, and since then, though I anticipate Lent with eagerness, I have not been as willing as I was to change and to really listen to God. All too often I enter the season of Lent hoping for the consolations I had once had, thinking maybe by doing this or not doing that they will come. Lord knows over these years I have been and will perpetually be in need of conversion. That doesn't change. But what can be different is how receptive I am to God's call to turn back to him with my whole heart.
So whatever I do or don't do, however I fast, pray and give, may it be with an open heart that is seeking God, seeking the Resurrected Christ.
Shalom.
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