Lent has begun and we are already being challenged through the day’s readings. In today’s first reading, Moses sets forth the challenge to the Israelites:
“I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
Choose life, then,
that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,
heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.” Dt. 30: 15-20
Choose life! Life?! Of course, we choose life, how absurd is it to think otherwise. In my world, choosing life is clearly obvious from the # of children I have, the mound of laundry I do everyday and the fact that my car is a 15 passenger van! We are the ones who march in DC every January and pray for an end to abortion. Some of us have adopted children, accepting children both healthy and those with complications. If anyone doubts our willingness to choose life, we are insulted. Nobody chooses life like we do!!
But, then we breathe deep and realize that Moses just might mean something more than babies. This chapter in Deuteronomy is entitled, “Compassion for the Repentant”. It is calling all of us to look at all the areas – especially beyond the babies – where we might be choosing the world – choosing death – over the life God is calling us to. It is asking us to look at areas of our life where we have let sin creep in; almost undetected.
Where does your life need some attention?
Lent is a time when many of us step away from social media, stop checking FB every few hours. Others do the 40 days and 40 bags challenge whereby you declutter your home with a bag a day; reducing the amount of stuff you own and strive instead to focus on the life you lead. Lent is great time to get some extra spiritual reading done. My parish gave away copies of Matthew Kelly’s Rediscover Jesus, while I read With God in Russia by Walter Ciszek last year.
I will admit my path to Easter than my family does each year, http://www.catholicicing.com/?s=lent isn’t quite filled out but I’m committed to having it done before I go do bed tonight.
So, in Lent 2017, what are you choosing?
