Dear Parent,
As I sit down to write this letter, we are halfway through Lent. This this a good time for me to assess where I have been and where I am going with my Lenten Journey. Maybe some of you are questioning the same. As a child, I would always give up something I really liked. Actually, as an adult I still try and give up something, but over the years my focus has changed a bit.
I try and focus more on appreciating what God has given me and stepping back and finding what I have lost along the way. I recently came across a passage from Sr. Joyce Rupp’s book, Fresh Bread. This passage always helps me reflect on what Lent is about:
The church is wise in offering us the season of Lent because it can be the very time we need to find what is missing from our lives; It can be the season to deliberately seek what has been tossed away or misplaced or ignored, so that our lives can once again reflect the Gospel which Jesus encouraged us to live. Lent can be a searching out and a restoration time and the means for renewed direction and perspective.
If we look closely into our heart we will find that we have all lost something we value. We may have lost our patience or our integrity; we may have lost our tempers or our respect for self or for others; we may have lost hope or our capacity to understand or accept; maybe we lost a friend or perhaps the desire to pray.
Sometimes we are not even sure what we have lost, but something tells us we need to look. Something unnamed gnaws at our insides and begs us to hunt, to pursue it. It may be a giant restlessness, or a feeling of not being at home with ourselves, or an inner ache that won’t go away. Perhaps it is a loss of our inner sense of direction or a feeling that we are not sure if we have strayed from the gospel path of our beliefs and dreams.
My prayer for each of you is that you find what you have misplaced in your life, during the remaining weeks of this Lent, and you continue to grow closer to the Lord.
In gratitude,
