You cannot have Easter Sunday without having had a Good Friday first. - Fr. Emil Kapaun. In other words you must die before you can rise from the dead. Gruesome, perhaps.
How has the season of Lent been treating you? I cannot lie that I have had my fair share of struggles and failures this semester. Like I noted in my last post (and the post before that...), a quote from Curtis Martin, founder of FOCUS. "God loves it when we fail. Not because we fail, but because we tried and we are humbled." It would take more than the fingers on both my hands for the number of times this Lenten season and this semester than I have tried, failed, and been humble by how much I need God's help to accomplish anything and everything.
One example is the first Friday a group of young women, with one of our campus ministers traveled to the county jail for jail ministry. I had not eaten lunch (one of Fr. Robert Barron's WordonFire.org homily's notes that any person can be easily irritated when hungry). The afternoon went fine, but upon returning to the student center Brian suggested that I not where jeans next time. Hungry and irritable, I overreacted at this comment. Not too dramatically, but enough to make it too big of a deal. I lated texted Brian an apology, noted that I had been humbled and God was happy.
This semester and Lenten season has been a continuous process for me of dying to self, all in preparation for Easter Sunday. A part of me has a bit of fear about how painful my Good Friday will be in a spiritual sense, but I also trust that God will pull me through, no matter how much it costs or hurts.
So why do we put ourselves through so much during Lent? That we may be better prepared to celebrate Easter Sunday. We can easily become desensitized to all that Easter is, and by praying, fasting, and giving alms, we increase our sensitivity and are better able to celebrate Easter in fullness.
Endure through this week, Holy Week, and Good Friday. Easter will be here soon. God is good. Peace.
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