This is the final Sunday before we enter into the season of Lent. We call this Quinquagesima Sunday for this is the fiftieth day before our celebration of Easter. The English name “Lent” comes from the word “length”which is made in reference to the lengthening of days which take place in the Spring. In Latin this season is known as Quadragesima which marks the reality of forty days until the celebration of Easter.
Christ puts His approaching death upon the cross into perspective when He reveals this information to His apostles in the Gospel of Saint Luke. As we advance into the Lenten season it is my hope that we will place our attention upon this reality. That through this season we will come to embrace the cross of our Lord in order that we may truly rejoice with Him on Easter at the Good News of the Lord’s Resurrection.
The imagery of the cross should make us consider uncomfortableness. In our modern day society it is easy to pursue what is comfortable and to reject that which is uncomfortable. As our Blessed Lord states from the Gospel of Saint Matthew: “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.” Despite this statement the allure to reject the cross in small matters, let alone large ones, is very real.
The Lenten season serves as a time to prepare for Christ’s Resurrection. It is a time where people are preparing to enter into the life of the church through the waters of baptism. For those of us who have been baptized it serves as a time to prepare to be renewed in the waters of baptism. If we are to accomplish these tasks we must take this sacred season that has been set before us seriously. With that, Lent must become an honest occasion where we enter into practices such as prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in order to pursue virtue.
If we are to pray more, fast more, and give more we will come to feel the weight of the cross and through its great weight we will grow in our capacity to grow into people of virtue. With that I invite you to take an hour in our adoration chapel, I invite you to come to our parish Stations of the Cross on Friday or to pray them on your own each Friday, I invite you to take up spiritual reading even if it means only a few pages a day, and I invite you to find other ways to sacrifice in order to grow close to the cross of Christ.
To enter into Lenten practices such of these may require you to let go of some your time, they may require you to let go of your passions, and they will require you to grow close to the cross of the Lord. Are we willing to take up this cross and embrace it or would we rather be left unchallenged, unchanged, and unknown to the Lord? Very soon we will enter into Lent and before we know it we will celebrate anew at Easter. Let us not enter into this season unprepared, but instead may we be found ready to take up these Lenten practices in order to encounter the Lord for who He truly is rather then the lord who we fashion in our own image.
