'40 Days About Being Loved And Loving'

Perhaps I backed myself into a corner when I wrote my 2016 New Year’s reflection for the Sisters of Providence website. I wrote then that I didn’t make New Year’s resolutions because there are so many occasions during the Catholic liturgical year to begin again. I mentioned Lent as an example.

So now, I am wondering how to explore Lent as an opportunity for a new beginning and not a contest with myself about keeping a resolution. How to practice believing that these 40 days are about being loved, loving – not about being punished? How to choose a daily practice to help me let go of an image of God who prefers punishing to loving?

I find that Lent brings out all my “old” images of God that I think I’ve let go of in recent years.

Childish thoughts arise unbidden as I attempt to embrace this season with sincerity and authenticity:

• If I give up (fill in the blank) for 40 days, then God will reward me,
• Lent is a time to feel disappointed because I am not perfect, and
• Lent is hard work – like pulling weeds.

Don’t get me wrong. I want to be and need to be more loving, more courageous, more authentically myself as a daughter of a loving God. This requires sacrifice, openness to others’ shortcomings and gifts, and a well-defined set of spiritual practices to become fully me.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind a season of taking a look at myself in the context of a woman who knows God as loving, wise, patient, all forgiving and always with us. I need to, want to, spend time enjoying being a beloved child of God and finding practices, people, readings, natural phenomena that assist me in being part of God’s loving energy.

Don’t get me wrong. I am certain coming to the place I wish to be is hard work – the hard work of living my baptismal commitment, my vows as a Sister of Providence, and my living the love that Jesus modeled and described as the “only commandment.”

Don’t get me wrong. I sometimes long for the “good ole days.” Giving up candy is so much easier than loving others and myself – so much easier than believing I swim in the river of God’s unending, flowing grace.

Wish me well as I allow God’s love to envelop, embrace and encourage me so that I may be a mirror of God’s love – an instrument of grace.

I wish you well in celebrating Lent in whatever ways make sense to you – as a child of a loving God.