Lent
Lent.
“40″ - among other things - is a biblical symbol for one generation. The Chosen People wandered homeless in the dessert for 40 years, and the older generation (excepting Joshua & Caleb) passed away without seeing the promised land. Christ promised his disciples that the end of the world would come before that generation had fallen asleep… and 40 years later, in 70 AD, the Jewish world, symbolized by the Temple in Jerusalem, was destroyed.
We Catholics choose to spend 40 days preparing to celebrate Easter (which we’ll celebrate for 50 days!) As Noah waited in the Arc, and as Christ endured temptation in the dessert, we too are marking off 40 days.
My “theme” for this Lent is letting go. Letting go of what I want. I was so inspired by Dietrich von Hildebrand’s insistence that we be willing to CHANGE in order to be transformed in Christ. In every spiritual way that I am unlike Christ, I need to change. And I need to be willing to do whatever He asks of me, even if it means changing all of the expectations I had before I fell in love, before I got married, before I became a mother.
In our college choir we sang a song that has stuck with me of late, called I Surrender:
I surrender my heart. I surrender my will. I surrender myself. And ask for nothing. I surrender to the power of your love.
