Trying Again

Lent 3 - so that means today is re-start time for the old Lent Rule. Yes, despite the fact I thought it was do-able I have already fallen on my face so I have to grab myself by the bootstraps and take the long haul to Holy Week a bit more seriously. I was excited to hear on the Radio on Saturday a Jesuit mention that his Lent Rule wasn't going too well - I always think Jesuits are much holier than me and my misery loved that little bit of company.

But not to get caught waxing lyrical in a sort of works theology of Lent I wanted to mention Church yesterday. I was praying away in a kind of vaguely complainy, self-pitying way - I am sure you know the one - and finally came up with the phrase why is all that my job anyway? And then I looked up and in full and stark focus was the crucifix above the altar - hmmm I thought, OK, point taken, that is why - the next prayer was "OK God, bring it on."

This faith path we tread is a funny old thing - but Paul in Romans is clear this morning that it is that faith, that relationship with God which comes first and that everything else is an outworking of that relationship.

In the case of Lent Rules they are designed to remove us further from the ties of the world around us and bring us into a deeper knowledge of and love with God - they are not acts in themselves. So, although I am contemplating starting again, it is out out of a stubborn sense but out of a sense of loss for the time I had planned to throw into that walk with Christ this Lent.

And then my prayer - if Our Lord could take the weight of the whole world on the cross and still offers each and every one of us a journey with HIm and in Him - then what is out duty in that journey. Is it to accept gladly, or is it to run scattered claiming that really it is nothing to do with us.