"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem" (Mk 10:33). With these words, the Lord invites the disciples to journey with him along the road that leads from Galilee to the place where he will complete his redemptive mission through his Suffering, Death, and Resurrection. These words of Christ are addressed to men and women of today as well. They invite us into the season of Lent, to travel “up to Jerusalem” with Christ, so that sharing in his Passion and Death we might share in his Resurrection. Lent, then, becomes a time to follow Christ more closely, a time of conversion, a time of death to self, a time to examine our lives and to root out those things which keep us from staying close to Our Lord as we travel the pilgrimage of this life.
“How is one to accept the invitation to conversion that Jesus addresses to us in this Lenten Season? How can a serious change in life come to be realized? It is necessary first of all to open the heart to the touching messages of the liturgy. The period that leads to Easter represents a providential gift of the Lord and a precious opportunity to draw closer to him, turning inward and listening to his voice within us.” (John Paul II, Papal Lenten Message 2001)
It is in the Liturgy of the Church that we find both our direction and our help in the season of Lent! The Liturgy puts on its somber vestments, strips itself of its Alleluias and Gloria in Excelsis. It invites us to a certain narrowing of life, to a voluntary deprivation of what is superfluous, to a period of hidden growth, always mindful of the hope that is held out for us in the Mystery of the Easter Resurrection. The liturgy is for the believer truly a drama of the events of our salvation, but not as a dramatization of something in the past, rather, here and now in each Mass we celebrate are the events of our salvation made real. Believers must only open themselves to these events through a spirit of prayer, of contrition and humility before God. What better way to develop in us this spirit of prayer than frequent attendance at Mass? Even daily Mass! What better way to show our contrition and humility then frequently turning to the Sacrament of Reconciliation?
The liturgies of Lenten Season invite us to open our hearts and our lives to those events which God worked for our salvation. Through opening our lives to the liturgy, through attentive listening to the readings and prayers we find the grace that we need to follow Christ on this pilgrimage up to Jerusalem. Writing to the early Christians of Rome, St. Paul explains why this pilgrimage is so necessary for the believer: “If we have died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with him.” Even in the midst of the somber Lenten liturgies, as we travel the way of the Cross with Christ we realize with the certainty of faith that Christ has already won the victory for us, and “death shall be no more”. (Rev. 21:4)
