The reality is
that the season of Lent, which Christians have practiced for so many
centuries, is about the same kind of yearning for greater light in the
world, whether you live in the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern
Hemisphere.
The word "Lent"
means "lengthen" and it's about the days getting longer. The early
Church began to practice a season of preparation for those who would be
baptized at Easter, and before too long other members of the Christian
community joined those candidates for baptism as an act of solidarity.
It was a season
during which Christians and future Christians learned about the
disciplines of the faith - prayer and study and fasting and giving alms,
sharing what they have.
But the reality is
that, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, the lengthening days
were often times of famine and hunger, when people had used up their
winter food stores and the spring had not yet produced more food to feed
people. Acting in solidarity with those who go hungry is a piece of
what it means to be a Christian. To be a follower of Jesus is to seek
the healing of the whole world.
And Lent is a time
when we practice those disciplines as acts of solidarity with the
broken and hungry and ill and despised parts of the world.
I would invite you
this Lent to think about your Lenten practice as an exercise in
solidarity with all that is - with other human beings and with all of
creation. That is most fundamentally what Jesus is about. He is about
healing and restoring that broken world.
So as you enter
Lent, consider how you will live in solidarity with those who are
hungry, or broken, or ill in one way or another.
May you have a blessed Lent this year, and may it yield greater light in the world.
