Dear Editor,
Lent is the solemn Christian religious observance in the liturgical year that commemorates the 40 days and nights Jesus spent in the desert praying, fasting, and enduring temptation by Satan before beginning his public ministry.
This year, Lent began on February 14, Ash Wednesday, the day when palm ashes are applied in the shape of a cross on the forehead of worshippers. The distribution of ashes serves as a somber reminder of human mortality and the need for reconciliation with God. Lent will end at sundown on March 28, Holy Thursday, with a solemn commemoration of the Last Supper shared by Jesus with his disciples.
During Lent, Christians throughout the world take part in rituals to prepare to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter. It’s a time of repenting for our sins and a time of receiving God’s mercy and love. Through prayer, fasting, and penance, we become more inclined to turn away from the distractions and preoccupations of everyday life and, in turn, focus more on what we can do to better serve God and love our neighbor. Lent serves as a time to refocus our need for God’s forgiveness.
Three weeks from now, Lent and Holy Week will merge beginning with Palm Sunday, which celebrates Jesus’s triumphant arrival in Jerusalem. That is the time within the remaining days of this Lenten season - a time of introspection and self-awareness - when we all might do well to define for ourselves what is truly most important.
In these times of global strife and of casting blame on others for growing conflicts, might we not do better by, as Michael Jackson sang about in 1988, taking a look at “the man in the mirror,” while asking what can I do differently to follow Christ’s will more faithfully? Let everything you do be done in love.
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1: 29).
Peter Wibell Rutledge