How did you encounter Christ this Lenten season? Reflecting on this question, some of you reading may respond to having spent your Lent actively fasting and preparing yourself to get to know Christ intimately. While others may say that they weren’t able to as their time was consumed by either school, work, family, service, and other responsibilities. Maybe some of you might have forgotten to fully participate this season, or chose not to at all. To be completely honest, on my end I think I started out strong by not breaking any of my fasts and keeping up with my daily prayers and reflections. However when it got closer to this Holy week I found myself lost by having to catch up or make up for missed fasting and daily consecrations. Amidst being caught up in working full time, deadlines for school, and other noises of this world – I lost my focus on Christ. Either if you find yourself in the same position as me, in one of those stated responses or somewhere in between: please know that there is still time to encounter Christ. Christ will always wait for you to seek Him. The Lenten season has ended and now we have entered into the Easter Season — we are celebrating the apex of the Catholic faith! If you feel ready or not to encounter Easter, you are still kindly invited to participate with the rest of the Catholic church.
Holy Week
This past Holy week, we have been celebrating events that lead us to the passion of Christ. From Palm Sunday to Good Friday we are encouraged to observe, participate, and reflect on these events, events that guide us to the epitome and existence of the Catholic faith. We celebrated Maundy Thursday, the day Christ gathered his apostles for the Last supper. At this last supper in the upper room, He institutes the Eucharist and priesthood. Then after washing the apostles feet, He then instructs us to do the same by serving others as He did. On Good Friday, we solemnly reflected on Christ’s death. A day that is good because He has permanently transformed our lives by choosing sacrificial love, a love endured through embracing unjust pain and suffering. We experienced Holy Saturday, when Jesus body was left in a tomb and He descended into hell to deliver righteous souls. And now we experience the beautiful joy of Easter Sunday, when Jesus rose from the dead. A reminder that there is always hope; that we can overcome our sins and rise with Christ when we choose to unite ourselves with Him. This hope is offered to all because of His love, a love that will echo through time. A love that that can only be experienced when we allow ourselves to submit into His will by uniting our own sufferings with Him, because there can be no resurrection without first experiencing the passion.
Passion and Resurrection
As a child and in my teen years, I viewed Lent as the only time of the year to reflect on and to honour Christ’s death. That Lent is the only time I should recall these events leading to the crucifiction, the only season to be experiencing Christ’s pain, and the rest of the year I have to keep Easter where Easter is celebrated. So when I began to actively cultivate my faith and relationship with Christ I found that the season of Lent transcends its given time period – that it can be referred to and experienced at any moment in my life. These moments in my life are when I was called to be sanctified. I have shared feelings of frustration and abandonment with Christ like when He told his disciples, “So, could you not watch with me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40) in Gethsemane. I have also shared Christ’s physical pain from torture whenever I too received any physical ailments, none of which will ever be close to what He experienced but at least I have a God who can sympathize in my pain. Great grief was experienced by His loved ones, especially by His dear Mother Mary. I have also shared many moments of sorrow and heartbreak to see those I love be rejected and hurt by others because they see Christ in them. I also shared the same experiences with His disciples. There are so many times I have not only followed but doubted or often denied Christ in my everyday life. These experiences didn’t all occur during Lent and Easter season, but I grew through them in different seasons of my life. Every time I experienced these periods of suffering, the promise of encountering hope and joy was waiting for my union with Christ. With this hope and joy, I savoured it by carrying the lessons from my cross so I could glorify Christ more perfectly in my everyday life. It is through my vulnerability to accept and grow through my given passion and resurrection I was able to fulfill part of my vocation to be Holy.
Choosing to Be United
As I stated before, there is still time to encounter Christ. When we choose to be united to Christ, this requires on our part to willingly deny ourselves, the act of kenosis is demanded from us. Recently, I met two lay women from the Madonna House who spoke about Lent. Their founder, Catherine Doherty, referred to Holy Week as the “week of tenderness” which requires Kenosis (is Greek for “emptying ourselves”), so we can claim our inheritance as children of God. This inheritance is God’s love and mercy – we can attain this by allowing Christ to love us and through us. We can do this by meditating on the life of Christ! (There are so many readings from this week that we can refer to). Participating in the sacrament of Reconciliation and other Holy Week liturgical celebrations in our parish is another means for us to better unite ourselves to Christ. (You can easily search online when your parish are holding Holy Week Celebrations). Doing the stations of the Cross is also a beautiful way to understand Christ’s journey to our salvation. As well, spending time in contemplative prayer to reflect on what is Christ calling us to do. If you feel that it is too late for to have encountered Christ during Lent, fear not! This week of tenderness will never remain here, as it will follow us in our everyday lives. Christ will never stop waiting for us.
The season of Lent is when we are asked to spend time in deep reflection and prayer to recognize our sins and to witness how we too can follow in Christ’s example. An example that can often times seem like an impossible act to follow. Although Christ came down as God in the form of man, He showed us how much He loves us and that we too can also strive for this unity with God. By allowing ourselves to unite our cross to His, we can also share in the joy of reaching Heaven one day. Our God is waiting for us to follow and encounter Him, so let’s strive to do so by praying, “speak Lord, Your servant is listening”.
Catherine Sim – High School Based East 1 School Volunteer & Advocacy Representative | CFC-Youth Pacific Region
