Lent is one of my favorite seasons of the Church year. I know that may sound strange, as Lent is often seen as a time of penance, but I have a different vision of Lent. For me, Lent is a time of conversion. In Greek the word for conversion is metanoia, literally a turning around. It is a time when we consciously focus on turning our hearts back to God. We try to spend a little more time with God in prayer. We make an extra effort to give to the poor and those in need, whether that need be physical, emotional or spiritual. We also fast, keeping ourselves in solidarity with those who do not have a ready supply of food as so many of us do.

Traditionally people ‘give something up’ in Lent. Such a practice can be a good way to be more mindful of all of the blessings we often take for granted on a day to day basis. I often add something to my life in Lent instead of or in addition to giving something up. Usually I add a way in which I will spend more time with God. It may be 10 minutes set aside to pray each day or it may be going to mass on a weekday each week. Whatever it is, adding something or giving something up, there is a certain discipline involved in our spiritual practices at Lent. We all maintain a measure of discipline around those things that are important in our lives. Most, if not all, of us are disciplined about getting up in the morning and going to work, because we know we would be fired if we didn’t have that discipline. Often we have a certain discipline to achieve a certain goal – we diet to lose weight, we practice to become a better pianist or basketball player, we study to get a certain degree. The word ‘discipline’ has such negative connotations because we think of it as punishment, something that happens to a child who misbehaves. That idea of discipline is not what I am talking about here. I am talking about the kind of discipline that we enjoy. It is a discipline that focuses our lives in the direction we want to go. It is the discipline that ‘turns us around’.

As good as such discipline is, it is not the goal of Lent. It is the means, not the end. The goal of Lent is to enter into a deeper relationship with God, the God who is the source of our salvation and who alone can fulfill all of our deepest longings and desires. The reading that we hear on Ash Wednesday is one of my favorites. In the reading, the prophet Joel tells the people what God desires. “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart (Joel 2:12).” God tells us to “rend our hearts, not our garments (Joel 2:13).” It is not so much our outward actions that are important as our inward dispositions.

Lent can be a special time of retreat that prepares one to enter into the joy of the resurrection at Easter. In this time of conflict in our world, when it is so easy to turn to despair, we are called to remember that we are an Easter people. As such, we believe that the victory over sin and death has already been won. As we watch new members come into our community at the Easter Vigil, each of us can renew our own membership in the Body of Christ. We take these weeks of Lent to prepare for that moment, so that we can once again affirm who we are and what we believe. We take these weeks of preparation to place our hopes and our dreams for the future of the world in the hands of the God who loved us into life.