Well, we’ve made it through another season of Lent. Emerging from Holy Week, we now celebrate the glorious Easter Octave and, following this, the remainder of the Easter season, which lasts fifty days. But I think it is important to reflect on what we have learnt throughout the season of penance and sacrifice that we have all just endured. So consider this a little reflective piece on some of the lessons from the Lent that was.

Now I’m not sure how Lent was for everyone else. For some of us, it may have been a breeze. But, for most of us, I think it would be a pretty good guess to say that it was challenging. This penitential season is intended to be challenging. It is supposed to cause some discomfort, to bring to the surface those things which we have been struggling with that we might have been pushing down so that we don’t have to address them. If this did not occur then we would not be able to overcome them and be purified. That is truly what Lent is about – the purification of our souls. And purification of souls does not happen without some discomfort and struggle.

I think something that really took centre-stage this Lent, at least for me, was surrender. Throughout the Lenten season, I followed along with Hallow’s Pray40 challenge which centred on the theme of surrender. Each day for these 40 days, I placed myself in the presence of God and tried to surrender to Him all that I had, all that was on my heart, everything I was struggling or trying to contend with.

But this surrender is not easy. At times, I would question whether I was truly surrendering everything to the Lord. I wondered if I was going against the surrender in certain ways. To be completely honest, I’m not really certain that I did truly surrender all to Him. I think that, when it came to particular aspects of my life, I was really wrestling with God – attempting to surrender them but at the same time attempting to seek a particular outcome. 

I think we all struggle to give over complete control to God. Being human, we instinctively want to control everything, because it means things are less unpredictable, thereby providing a greater sense of comfort. But we need to be able to step away from comfort, to be challenged. If we aren’t, we will only remain in a place of deep complacency and our lives will likely become stagnant. We cannot possibly grow closer to God and deepen our relationship with Him if we remain in such a place.

We can look to the disciples of Christ to see how this works. Each one of these men would have been perfectly fine continuing to live as they were without following Jesus when He called them. Each one easily could have remained in the comfort of the place they were in. But each one chose to follow our Lord, each one wanted to go deeper. And in choosing to follow Our Lord, each one committed to facing challenges and being tested, to enduring hardships and placing their trust entirely in God. This culminates in Holy Week when the disciples face their greatest challenge of all – the Passion and death of their Master, Teacher, and Friend. 

And I think we see the struggle with surrender most poignantly in Peter’s denial of Christ. Peter told the Lord he would follow Him even to death, essentially saying he would surrender his own life for Jesus. But when he was challenged, he gave in to human instincts and went back on that surrender. And yet there is great consolation in knowing that Jesus gave Peter the opportunity to make up for his denial. Each of us is given that opportunity to try again, to make another attempt to surrender everything, including our heart and our will, to God. Everything in creation belongs to God, but our hearts are the one thing that He does not possess. We have a choice to freely give them to Him. He cannot take them from us. They are a gift only each of us can present to Him with great love and trust.

The power of prayer and fasting is also something to behold. As I mentioned in my Lenten reflection at the beginning of the penitential season, prayer and fasting help us to bring God into focus and strengthen our will so that we can better resist temptation. For me personally, this was the first time I really took this seriously. And while I fasted from the food of this world, I found myself craving and becoming more enriched by the spiritual food of the Holy Eucharist and Sacred Scripture.

The penitential season of Lent also draws our focus to certain prayers that we may not have considered at other times throughout the year. Each Friday, there were beautiful opportunities to focus on the Stations of the Cross and journey with Christ through His Passion, suffering and death on the Cross. The Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary became more poignant, especially during Holy Week as we drew closer to the commemoration of the events of Christ’s Passion and death. And the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady provided a beautiful way of connecting more deeply with Our Blessed Mother and drawing closer to her in her grief and anguish of watching her Son endure His suffering.

I think the one other thing that we learn from the season of Lent, and probably the most important, is the value of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. As we make sacrifices, focus on fasting, and spend more time in prayer, we spend a significantly greater deal of time in self-reflection, examining ourselves and drawing our focus to sins we are struggling with and what we could be doing better to prevent ourselves from falling into sin. In engaging in such self-reflection, we understand that we need to seek the loving mercy and forgiveness of our Heavenly Father, and, in engaging with the beautiful Sacrament of Reconciliation, we develop a greater appreciation for this wonderful Sacrament that God has given us.

Yes, we realise just how sinful we are. But there is no need to despair. For despair darkens our souls and leads us into greater sin, just as it did to Judas. It is in this great Sacrament of Reconciliation that we find healing. And it is in the great Paschal Mystery, that great sacrifice on the Cross, where Jesus stretched out His arms wide and took on all our sin, that we find the greatest healing love of all. 

Lent may have been difficult. It may have presented some challenges that tested your limits. But we must all remember that there is no Easter Sunday without a Good Friday. While there was pain and anguish on that first Good Friday when Our Lord was put to death, there was consolation and hope in His glorious Resurrection. As the Easter Sequence says: ‘Life’s own Champion slain, yet lives to reign.’

Without suffering there is no salvation.

And so, having endured and come to the conclusion of Lent, we can now celebrate with great jubilation knowing that Christ is Risen and reigns victorious over sin and death.

May the Risen Christ bless you all abundantly this Easter Season.

Viva Cristo Rey!