Looking Back on Our Lenten Journey

Now is the time when we celebrate the Easter season. As faithful Catholics, however, we should go a step further and reflect on what our Lent was really like this year. Did we fail at our personal penances? How many times did we get behind and have to catch back up? How much did we really pray, fast, and give alms? Did we simply give up what we liked or did we give it to God? Did we create virtuous habits for good?

As we reflect on these questions and perhaps more that come to mind, we should realize how crucial Lent is for the soul’s journey toward the Easter season and Heaven. For us to get to the glorious resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we must go through a time of suffering in this world.

Nearness to Christ through Suffering

In the following quotes, Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Saint Gemma Galgani remind us of the importance of suffering.

“Pain and suffering have come into your life, but remember pain, sorrow, suffering are but the kiss of Jesus – a sign that you have come so close to Him that He can kiss you.” St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta

This quote from Saint Mother Teresa speaks to my heart because it expresses how close we can become to Christ in the midst of our own suffering. When we bear our cross in this world, we can be united to Jesus intimately in this way because He bore a cross, too. He bore a cross to save humanity from our dreadful sins. This is what Lent is all about. It is about suffering for Jesus and becoming closer to Him, especially when the cross seems too heavy.

“When I shrink from suffering, Jesus reproves me and tells me that He did not refuse to suffer. Then I say, ‘Jesus, Your will and not mine’. At last I am convinced that only God can make me happy, and in Him I have placed all my hope…” St. Gemma Galgani

This quote from Saint Gemma speaks to my heart as well because it shows that for us to truly be disciples of Our Lord Jesus Christ and inherit the kingdom of God, we must do as Jesus did and accept all suffering that comes our way. It is by this that our suffering can be offered up to God and can become a form of prayer. If we do this, we can be sure that we are indeed following God’s will and not our own.

Bearing Our Crosses

Perhaps a good practice we could do is to make a list of all the things we did during Lent and take it to prayer. We could pray to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit and ask how we can offer up our life to God in smaller ways since it is not the penitential season of Lent. Because even though Easter is a joyous time of celebration, we still have to bear our crosses and work. We all know that this can be tiresome sometimes. So let us continue to have a charitable spirit, give what we can, and bear our crosses with courage. Because no matter how heavy our crosses may seem, no cross was as heavy as the cross of Jesus Christ. He carried the weight of all our sins on His scourged back in order that we live with Him forever.

I hope that Lent this year has brought about a conversion in you. I hope that it has more closely united you to Jesus Christ so that you truly want to spend an eternity with the glorious King of the universe who wants to save you from eternal death to everlasting life.

And since we are, in fact, celebrating the Easter season in Christ’s holy Catholic Church, here are a couple of quotes from saints that we should reflect on about Easter and its true meaning: the glorious resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Easter is for everyone a mystery of death and life: For this reason, according to the express precept of the Church, which we paternally remind you, every faithful is invited at this time to purify their conscience with the sacrament of penance, immersing it in the Blood of Jesus; and he is called to approach the Eucharistic Banquet with greater faith, to feed on the life-giving flesh of the immaculate Lamb. The mystery of Easter is therefore of death and resurrection for each believer.” St. John XXIII

“Why should we today sing Alleluia, Praise the Lord? Because this day we are fed, freed, assured of the truth, and given promises of being endowed, in our resurrection, with the gifts of clarity, agility, brightness and impassibility, which Christ showed in his resurrection.” St. Vincent Ferrer