March 12, 2010
The Christian Journey
Lent: Time to change, not to endure
BY FATHER JIM SAUER
After Christmas, I decided to celebrate Masses with our religious education youth. The elementary children in Tenth Street School (located directly across from the Parish Center) had released time throughout the day. Groups, between 8 to 30 children, gathered in our chapel. I really enjoyed being with the children, relating the gospel to them, and explaining the Mass to help them understand it.
Last week a girl asked what I was giving up for Lent. I said, “Honey, Jesus tells us that we’re not supposed to tell anyone that. That’s just between Jesus and me. Otherwise, it can become something we brag about. We can make others feel we are doing more than they are. Then we already have our reward by what others think of us.” A boy quickly popped up, “I’m giving up three cokes every day during Lent!” So much for my instruction!
I asked if he planned to continue giving up three cokes every day after Lent. He said, “Heck no!” I said, “Then how does giving up three cokes every day during Lent help you to become a better Christian?” He still understands Lent as a “penitential season” with no connection to Christ’s baptismal call to become a better person.
I made a suggestion. After Lent, why didn’t he try drinking just two cokes every day? Whatever the third coke cost, put that money in the purple pew bags on the last Sunday of the month, which goes to our parish in Haiti? He could still enjoy two cokes and the children in Haiti could benefit from the money from the third coke he sacrificed in honor of Christ’s love for him. He would then be a new person. He will have changed a little bit in life. He will have risen with Jesus a little more by Easter. He said, “I’ll try.” “Try” is all we can do because Lent will come again next year!
The opening song of the Mass was “We are the light of the world, let your light shine before all, that they may see the good that we do and give glory to God.” I asked, “When did you become a light of Christ.” After several attempts, someone remembered, “When the priest gave our parents a candle lit from the Easter Candle at our baptisms and said ‘Receive the Light of Christ.’”
I asked, “Where are your baptismal candles?” Their responses were “in their baby boxes; in their mom’s bedroom so it wouldn’t get lost; in the cedar chest; on my dresser in front of the mirror, which I can’t see because too much clutter is hiding it.” I encouraged them to ask their moms if they could put their baptismal candle in a prominent place in their rooms or a picture of the priest giving their parents their candle. Every morning before leaving for school, they are invited to say this prayer, “Jesus, help me to be a light of your love and goodness to others today.” If the children did this for 40 days, they might continue it after Easter. It could easily become a basic prayer for the rest of their lives. What a blessing it would be for them to remember throughout their entire lives how they are “Christ’s light of love to others!”
What other ways can parents and catechists help children move beyond a Lent “to be endured” attitude for 40 days to a new vision of Lent where we understand that Jesus calls us to make changes in order to rise to new life, celebrated on Easter, and a permanent reshaping of our life in Christ after Easter?