Come Back to Me

The mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection is the basis tenet of our faith. We celebrate that event in every Mass: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again.” The early Christians interpreted the death and resurrection of Jesus as a new Passover. Just as God chose people and brought them from slavery to freedom, so in the death and resurrection of Jesus, God, the great liberator, is calling us out of fear of death and enslavement to sin to a new life in Christ. This is a life that will reach fulfillment when we make our Passover from this life to the next. The Church reminds us of our Baptism during this season of Lent. In Baptism, we began our journey in this new life. So often like the people in the desert we return to sinful ways, we get distracted with the passing things of this life and forget about God.

The Church calls us during these forty days of Lent to take time out to examine our lives, and reflect on how we live out our Baptismal commitment to Christ and our fidelity to the Gospel. The Church challenges us to see the meaning of Lent, and the meaning of our lives with all its joys and sorrows in the light of the death and resurrection of Christ. This event is at the heart of the meaning of all history and all human existence. In the light of Christ’s death and resurrection, all our dying and risings have meaning. The Church calls us to walk in solidarity with all who are on their journey to the new life in Christ through baptism or a profession of faith. That is why the season of Lent is a special time for the people in the RCIA.

Lent is also a time of repentance. Ash Wednesday calls us to turn away from sin and return to the Lord with all our hearts. The best way to get back on track on our faith journey is through receiving the Sacrament of Penance. The Church provides lots of opportunities for us to make a good confession and make a new beginning. God calls us to “come back to me with all your hearts.” Lent provides us with a great opportunity to renew the new life we received in Baptism. We pray that this Holy Season of Lent, a season of prayer, fasting and almsgiving will lead us closer to Christ.

Addictions

“’Addiction’ is a hard word. It conjures up horrific images of life-threatening dependence on some narcotic or hallucinogen that robs us of our ability to control our lives. But the fact is that every one of us has some addiction: the things we cannot imagine living without. It may be eating, shopping blaming or taking care of other people. We can be addicted to the latest, the newest, the hottest, the most fashionable. Our addiction may be our obsession with our computer or electronic toys, our favorite band, our golf clubs. We are all addicted to habits, substances or surroundings that comfort us, that provide a refuge for us, that blocks out what scares or hurts us.

At some point in our lives, however, we find ourselves alone in some kind of desert or wilderness, deprived of our addictions. We experience emptiness within us that our addiction will not fill. We are suddenly exposed, like someone addicted to painkillers whose prescriptions have just run out. It is hard, it is awful, but to become fully human it is necessary to encounter the world without our own anesthesia, to find out what life is like with no comfort but God. That may be the simplest definition of addiction: anything we use to fill the empty space inside us that belongs to God alone.

The season of Lent calls us to leave our addictions and pacifiers, our comfort loved and toys behind and journey to the desert, to be alone with nothing but God. It is a time to take a hard look at the ‘addictions’ that control us, and regain control of our time and values so that we may become the man or woman God created us to be. May our ‘desert time’ alone with God over the next 40 days - leaving behind our addictions and obsessions - help us refill our souls and spirits with the wisdom and grace of the God who constantly seeks us out and calls us back to him.”

(Connections: February 2005)