a Holy Lent

Growing up, I had friends and friends of our family who were Roman Catholic. As a kid it seemed like church mattered to them. They wore uniforms to school. They wouldn't eat meat on Fridays. They always went to church each week, often on Saturday evening before our families went out to dinner.  As a child these practices made it seemed to me that their faith really mattered. My family just went to church (occasionally).

It’s not that I necessarily wanted to do those things, but their religion seemed more important than ours. One Lent I asked my parents, “why don’t we have to wear school uniforms or eat fish on Fridays? Why don’t we go to mass on Saturday night before dinner?” Their answer? “We were free eat whatever we wanted” which translated, ‘whatever mom served us for dinner.’

As an adult I have come to embrace the season of Lent in my own United Methodist tradition. Lenten disciplines have deepened my appreciation of Easter and the practice of our faith. I have embraced the discipline of eating fish on Friday during Lent, not as a legalism, but as an act that helps to remind me and set apart this special season.

Lent is about transformation. On Sunday mornings I often pray a prayer before I speak. This prayer was taught to me by a pastor, years ago when I was a teenager and I prayed it even before I became a Christian.  To me it embraces the practice of Lent and the transformation God wants to do in us. Use it for yourself if it is helpful.

God, help us to be such masters of ourselves
that we might truly become the servant of all others, 

take our lips and speak through them,
our minds and think through them,
and then take our hearts to set them on fire.