Looking forward to Lent

Lent has come back. That means we are approaching Easter, one of the most important seasons according to the Church calendar.

As you know Lent is a forty-day period before Easter. It begins on Ash Wednesday. We skip Sundays when we count the forty days, because Sundays commemorate the Resurrection. Lent begins on 22^nd Feb and ends on 8^th April 2023, which is the day before Easter. According to some dictionary,  The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, penitence, abstinence, fasting, almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus,

However, when we look around the world, we are likely to be more skeptical, rather than more faithful. We are not sure what could this Easter mean to the people in agony and grievance resulted from a series of natural disasters such as floods or earthquake.

Some say Lent is retreating into the wilderness with Jesus. Yes, we wander in the wilderness of our faith because so many questionable and unreasonable things happen around us. We may be doubtful, scared, or lonely in that wilderness. Nonetheless, one very sure thing is we are with Jesus there. During this Lent, why don’t you spend a short time of every day to meditate on God, Jesus, and the world.

 

Originally, Lent is said to mean “spring” which was developed from “Lang” in Anglo Saxon language and “Lenz” in German. After 40 days of dark and lonely journey in wilderness, we would finally go into a season of spring in our spirituality, although in Australia we enter to autumn. Let’s go together in this spiritual journey. Cheers!