Well, I’ve been telling you that Lent is coming, and here it is beginning this Wesnesday, Ash Wednesday! Out theme is “Remembering the Household of God.” Each human being is created in God’s image and likeness, and through faith we are called to be God’s children – brothers and sisters one to another. We are a part of a great household or family – the Household of God.

This is a time to remember who we are, who we are called to be, and to re-member by pulling together the fragmented parts of who we are. It may also be a time to re-member for those who have walked away from faith for some reason or other over the years. Some have simply drifted away, not realizing how important the community of the Church, the hearing of the Gospel, and the practice of the sacraments is in their lives. Some have been disappointed in the Church’s human reality. Others are angry with God over some loss or pain they have endured. This is the time to re-member, to enter again the house of our Father, the Household of God. With this time we also experience a shift in the celebration of mass, the Scared Liturgy of the Church. Our color moves to purple. This is a color of the royalty of Christ, the Servant-King. This is the color of penance as we turn our hearts once again to the Lord and “lean on Him.” The mass is more contemplative as we prepare for the awesome mystery of grace we will experience in the Paschal Celebration of the Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Vigil and Feast of Easter.

At the same time the ancient texts of the Roman Missal refer to this time as a “joyous season.” Why would the Fathers of the Church have referred to this time as joyous? Because it is the time when we accompany our brothers and sisters preparing to enter the Church through baptism and the profession of faith in their journey toward Christ! And that is a joyous thing! The mystery is that the pains and sufferings we endure, the crosses we are called to bear, get transformed into resurrection and new life because of what Jesus has done for us and with us.

Please, please, please don’t let this Lent go by unnoticed and un-experienced. Let this be your time for remembering!

– Fr. Larry