I consider this sharing as the fourth opportunity I have to think and meditate on Lent for this Year 2021. First, on Saturday before Ash Wednesday, I had a meeting with the youth to whom I am sent for my apostolate (PYM). They suggested me to give a talk about Lenten Season and I was happy to prepare the talk without knowing that some discoveries could later condition what I now call ‘’Lenten Season in My Daily Life’’. Second, it was through our monthly recollection that the preacher emphasized how to live Lent as a 40-day retreat. Lastly, I had the opportunity to read carefully the letter of our General Direction to the Confreres for this special time of Lent 2021.
When the heart is ready to listen, the message becomes more meaningful as it can touch the very concrete moment of one’s life. I realize this to be my disposition when I connect the three moments: the meeting with the youth, the recollection, and the letter from the General Direction. Though various things were discussed in those moments, one however is recurrently coming to me is Prayer. Do I have to confess that I do not pray? By no means! How can a young religious live without prayer? ‘’How can a person consecrated to God live without God?’’ (DG, Lent 2021).
While preparing the talk to the Youth about Lenten Season, I was touched when I read that if there is one thing, we think we know about Lent, it is that we are supposed to “give something up.” But the article continued showing how it is not enough to give something up without a living relationship with God through prayer. Therefore, I was challenged to reconsider the position of prayer in my life during this Lenten Season. I then discerned whether I have to let prayer become the motivation for my works, as far as my very ordinary life activities of service in the community and studies are concerned. I believe in the fact that without prayer my works in those domains were just voluntary activities that I have to accomplish either as a community member or a student. Thanks to God; I can feel more joy in doing the same things (community services and studies) but with a more prayerful disposition. A recent case is when I had to connect my academic assignment of reading the whole ‘’Pauline Corpus’’ with my daily meditation on the Word of God. After doing so, I felt like being motivated to read the 2 or 3 daily chapters not only once, but twice and even more. The assignment from my professor became then part of my prayer, a means to let God talk to me and me listen to Him. I hope to have other similar situations in my daily life, where prayer will enter my other activities. In this way, I think and believe that I will be fighting to remove what our General Direction calls ‘’the temptation of monotony, routine, confusion, immobility, and déjà vu’’.
The 40-day-retreat as described in our recollection is a time of grace. Being a member of a religious community, I am happy to participate in our common orientation to living the Lent 2021. This participation, as I have mentioned, will have a prayerful disposition as motivation to experience a living relationship with God, with other people, and with myself.
In few words, I am grateful to God for making me listen to the necessity of prayer in my life during this time of grace. I ask him to continue his work in me so that I may keep on listening to him to let my life bear the fruit of having God as the one who inspires my words and deeds. In this way, my prayer will be according to God’s logic but not mine. My actions will be channels of God's love for others than simple voluntary activities. My fasting will bear fruit of generosity than vain temporary self-denial.
May the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, intercede for us so that the gifts of this Lenten Season may bear fruit in our daily life.
