Dear Parishioners and Friends,

This Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, the season of Lent begins--a season meant to be for us a time of spiritual growth.  A fruitful Lent should give us a higher state of awareness of God’s unconditional love for us. Lent should be for us a time of a new conversion.  Like all areas of our lives, our spiritual life needs to continually develop.  For too many people our religious knowledge, practice and culture have not gone beyond what was learned when we were young.  This can be spiritually challenging-- facing some of the issues and crises in our lives when we really need God to get us through.  Lent calls us to make changes in our lives, to break old habits and develop healthy new ones.  Unfortunately, a conversion does not come with a prepackaged set of beliefs, values and instructions on how to act.  We need to spend some time in prayer and meditation.  As Christians we, like the first disciples, are meant to be always learning. It’s not about memorizing a set of rules but trying to understand how best to live a life that is lived out in our relationship to Jesus, a life based on the Gospels.  We need to be attentive to the world around us and the people we encounter as we struggle to be Christ-like.  We need to be open to change, open to growth.  We need to remind ourselves daily “this day God will send me whatever support, whatever guidance, whatever forgiveness I need”. We need to look for the many ways that God comes, through the different agents he sends us.  We need to be open to God’s presence, God’s guidance in whatever each day brings.  As is written in the Breastplate of St. Patrick, the patron saint of our Archdiocese:          

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

We need to remember that God’s ways are not our ways.  It takes an openness; it takes trust.  Faith is a way of listening – to be able to hear God’s voice; faith is a way of seeing God’s presence among us.  Christ comes to us as the Master of disguise. He comes to us and speaks to us through others. For those of us who boldly bear the title of Christian, the imitation of Christ should be our life. Lent is meant to be a time to ask ourselves how we can be more Christ-like.  It should be a time of reflection, prayer, study and discussion. Read the Gospels, pray the psalms, attend daily Mass, fast from extraneous distractions, help feed the poor (participate in our Rice Bowl Campaign). Most of all, be open to God’s presence, God’s guidance, God’s love in those we encounter in our day to day lives.

Father David Nolan