‘Set our spirits free, that we may worship You, set our spirits free that we may praise Your name, Let all bondage go and let deliverance flow,
set our spirits free to worship You.’
Lent is a time of grace. For forty days Moses talked with God on Mount Sinai. Elias walked for forty days till he reached Mount Horeb. The Hebrews wandered in the desert for forty years before entering the Promised Land. Jesus withdrew into the desert for forty days before His public ministry. ‘Forty’ is a symbolical number in Sacred Scripture that indicates the time needed to draw closer to God. By this closeness we are made more aware of His/Her presence, experience God’s great goodness and thus enter into intimate communion with Him/Her.
Lent is meant to be enjoyed rather than to be endured. Lent offers us an opportunity to leave our past behind and to start again. Lent invites us to begin again and renew. This is the wonderful thing about the Christian life – it is a series of new beginnings. We can always start again. Lent is a growing period. We can understand the paradox of life through death when we look at nature and human growth. A seed lies smothered and submerged in the dark earth before it blooms and blossoms. By their death Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King became powerful influences in the liberation of their people. By dying to some of our old attitudes and forms of behavior we discover a new way of life. (Mary De Souza, IBVM)
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