While the month of January in secular culture is typically devoted to New Year's resolutions and implementing various changes in our lives, the Church provides the season of Lent for similar purposes.
Lent is a time when we need to examine our lives and question how close we are to God.
Spiritual renewal is at the heart of the season of Lent, and the Church encourages us to fully embrace it.
For example, on Ash Wednesday one option for the priest or minister to use when imposing ashes are the words, "Repent and believe in the Gospel." This helps cement even more the idea that we need to turn around our lives toward God.
Born again
Pope Benedict XVI elaborated on this spiritual aspect of Lent in a general audience in 2007 on Ash Wednesday. He specifically connected it to those preparing for Baptism and how each one of us needs to prepare to be "reborn" in a spiritual way:
Lent is a renewed "catechumenate" for us too, in which once again we approach our Baptism to rediscover and relive it in depth, to return to being truly Christian. Lent is thus an opportunity to "become" Christian "anew", through a constant process of inner change and progress in the knowledge and love of Christ. Conversion is never once and for all but is a process, an interior journey through the whole of life.
In many ways this is why the Church encourages Lenten sacrifices, in hopes that the things we give up will lead us to open our hearts wide to God's grace.
This is one of the reasons why giving up chocolate may be one good thing to do during Lent, it shouldn't be our only sacrifice.
We need to look intentionally at our spiritual life to discern where we need to grow.
Instead of giving something up, we may decide to pray more on a daily basis, sacrificing our time to the Lord.
Above all, Lent is about conversion of heart, which Pope Benedict XVI explains:
To be converted thus means not pursuing one's own personal success - that is something ephemeral - but giving up all human security, treading in the Lord's footsteps with simplicity and trust so that Jesus may become for each one, as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta liked to say, "my All in all".
Whether we realize it or not, we are all in need of conversion and Lent is the perfect time to renew our efforts to let God truly reach the depths of our hearts.
It is a time to let ourselves be "born again" in our spiritual lives.
