Darkness to Light

It’s my favorite liturgical season again…Lent. Time to refocus, reframe and refresh our relationship with the Lord.

There’s no question, we’re living in dark times. And every day it seems, more and more corruption is being exposed. It’s a time of revelation…God is pulling back the curtain and the light is revealing some very ugly stuff.

Examining your spiritual life

There’s a similar process that should be happening in our spiritual lives this time of year. We spend more time in prayer, fasting, and giving alms. The goal is to allow God to shine His merciful light upon our own inner corruption and weakness and to plunge it into the crucible of His passion for our redemption. The point is not simply to suffer but to take on some bodily mortifications in order to put our passions right again—to gain some control over our fallen and weak human nature so wounded by original sin and the actual sins we’ve piled upon it.

It can be tough, it being so outside of our comfort zone. It’s so much easier to just keep going the way we are. But taking this period of time to stop, to meditate on the passion of our Lord, to deny ourselves small things in order to reign ourselves in pays such amazing dividends in our lives, spiritually and in other ways as well.

Ponder that.

If we’re not right spiritually, we’re not right in any way. It’s the foundation upon which we build our lives. The darkness of the world is in large part due to the lack of spiritual integrity so prevalent today. Every one of the world’s problems would resolve themselves if people truly lived the gospel.

So, that’s the call on us. Not only to work toward our own spiritual improvement but to take that light and shine it on this broken world in which we live. We’re called to evangelize. For many that sounds daunting, but does it need to be? Think about it. We’re told to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. Our cross. Not His. We don’t actually nail ourselves to crosses…we give up chocolate or beer or ice cream. We’re only called to small mortifications so think in terms of small efforts toward evangelization. You don’t need to get up on a soap box in the village square and preach. But how about saying grace at meals? How about being ready to answer for this hope that you have in Christ? Let’s not be shy. Keep focused on the Easter joy and light before you and shine.

“Let us run with perseverance the race that is
set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer
and perfector of our faith, who for the sake of
 the joy that was set before Him endured
the cross…” (Hebrews 12:1-2) c