So Lent is upon us once again. I don’t know if you can relate, but for me, even though I was aware that it was coming, I still felt like it snuck up on me. I think it partly had to do with the busy-ness of life as well as the fact that I like to avoid self-denial. After all, the discipline of denying oneself is completely counter-cultural in our immediate gratification society and as Chinese-Americans, we don’t like to make confrontational ripples.
As I gathered myself at Ash Wednesday Mass, though my body hadn’t felt like going, my spirit experienced a peace wash over it. I became fully aware of my dirtiness, but I began to feel the Holy Spirit fill the spaces I had started to create in my soul. It made me so thankful that the Church, through the Spirit’s leading, guides us in these liturgical seasons every year. It’s like She knew that we would get caught up in all the things we need to do, the worth that we’d feel in the things we accomplish, and fill up holes in our life with lesser things so that we squeeze out space for God to love us and forgive us.
Good thing we have a Church that is right where we are wrong.