Lent is co,.. HERE!!!

Lent is coming, (Actually is here!)and well the time for true Spiritual bootcamp is now upon us.  How to prepare?  Perhaps this Lent, we can kick it a little ‘old school’ and meditate the reality of death, judgement, Heaven and hell.  Yup.  That is a pretty clear directive.  Jesus comes as merciful Saviour but He will return as Just Judge.  Have we as a society and a Church forgotten that reality?  I would tend to think so.  The truth is that ‘Lent’ can be and should be our Spiritual ‘spring cleaning.’ 

Perhaps we (I include myself) don’t meditate upon the Four Last things enough.  The reasons can range to ‘its ‘pre-conciliar’ all the way to ‘it will scare people.’  Again though this is time when we need to actualize and realize our own Spiritual pilgrimage, we sometimes can waste this season and reduce it to the temporal order.  ‘For Lent, I will try to recycle…’  Well, okay, but are we really entering into a vertical relationship with God?  The issue for Lent remains death, judgement, Heaven and hell period.  All the rest is temporal window dressing.  The Church has consistently given Lenten missions, however in the last 70yrs or so, these missions have turned into a temporal social justice (actually Marxist because actual social justice is a Christian virtue) propaganda affair.  Our Church indeed does have a responsibility toward the poor, and that responsibility remains getting them to Heaven!

The Church too often is seen as just another humanitarian organization.  The reality is otherwise!  The Church is established so that the Holy Mass make take place in Her gatherings to offer worship, praise along with reparation for sin to God the Father through Jesus, the Son.  The Mass remains the unbloody Sacrifice of the Son to the Father.  All the community activities, social programs and whatnot must flow from that reality. 

Let’s make Lent 2017 count!  Let’s do and sacrifice stuff we could never imagine.  Let’s pray and enter Spiritual bootcamp, in preparation for Easter!  May God bless us all as we enter this most precious time of Grace!

Our Lady of Fatima,……………………………………Ora pro nobis!