St. Anthony the Abbot Catholic Church

It is a good idea to pay more attention than usual to the crucifix during Lent, maybe using an image of the crucifixion as a screen saver, making sure you have at least one crucifix on your wall in your home, or having a holy card with the image of the crucifixion on it. The crucifix is a summary of this story of sin and salvation. Christ's wounds are vivid images of sin, of what sin does to ourselves, the world, and our relationship with God. But they are also vivid images of the intensity of His love for us: He suffered freely and willingly, to pay the price of our sins and give us hope for salvation.

An anecdote from the American Revolutionary War helps illustrate this. An important military message had to be sent through territory infested with the enemy –remember smart phones with texting or email weren't available. A courageous corporal was chosen to accompany the messenger. They had not gone far when they drew fire from the enemy. The messenger was killed and the corporal severely wounded in the side, but he didn't abandon his mission. He grabbed the tightly wrapped dispatch from the dead messenger and rode on till he grew faint from loss of blood.     

Fearing the message would fall into the hands of the enemy, he squeezed the dispatch into the wound in his side until it closed around it. The next day, they found him with a smile on his lips, so weak he could not speak, but still able to point to the wound in his side. There they found the message. The surgeon who cared for him said that the wound itself was not fatal, but putting the paper into it caused his death. The wounds of Christ contain a message for us, a message of love and sacrifice, a message of salvation from sin, a message of His unconditional and unfailing devotion to each one of us.

Sin and salvation: the sin that wounds our hearts and our world, and the salvation that heals - these are the great themes of Lent. But how can we allow these ideas, these truths, to inform our daily lives during the coming weeks? Today's Psalm gives us the answer: "Teach me your paths…Good and upright is the Lord...He shows sinners the way."     Every sin is disobedience to God's will, a deviation from the path of wisdom, goodness, and everlasting life. Salvation consists in returning to that path; it consists in discovering and following, under the impulse of God's grace, God's will for our lives.

Lent, then, is in the first place a time to reflect on how we have deviated from God's will. We need to examine our hearts during these days to honestly see where we have gone astray. And then we need to confess these sins to God in the sacrament of penance, and experience the unconditional mercy of God's forgiveness. But turning away from the wrong path is only the first half of our Lenten journey.

The second half is renewing our commitment to follow the right path from now on. This we cannot do alone. We need the guidance that Christ gives us in prayer and through His Church's teachings; we need the strength He gives us in His sacraments. If we turn from the path of selfishness and ask God to lead us in the path of salvation, He surely will. When He does, our lives will become fruitful oases of peace, wisdom, and courage in the desert of self-indulgence, violence, and relativism that our culture, in so many ways, has become.

As we enter into this beautiful season of Lent, let us pray in our hearts: "Lord, teach us your paths; show sinners (me) the way."