Once again we find ourselves at the first Sunday of Lenten season. Lent is the forty days leading up to Easter Sunday and is a time of conversion when we think again about who we have become and who and what we want to become.
It began last Wednesday, known as Ash Wednesday, where traditionally one is marked on the forehead with the symbol of a cross and we are encouraged to follow traditional disciplines of prayer, meditation, fasting or some other way of showing our devotion.In many churches the palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday ceremony is burned to make the ashes for Ash Wednesday. The ashes are to be retained on the forehead until after sundown.
The First Sunday in Lent
On the First Sunday of Lent there is sometimes a service devoted to the teaching of Self-examination. Often it is difficult to look upon ourselves with truth and understanding. It is much easier to see the faults of others and what they need to do to make those corrections than it is to see our own.
That’s why it is such a good idea to have an understanding of the importance of Lent season and using this time of self examination in a productive and positive way. Once again there is a special time set aside for us to do the important inner work that we need to do.
The lent season is meant to be a time of mental and physical ‘fasting.’ This is the time of year when traditionally medieval and/or native persons were experiencing a dwindling of the winter food stores and were forced to cut back and eat less. This became the natural period of time for self-examination, by way of rest and introspection, pondering and meditating in whatever way was appropriate in that era. Vision quests were commonly undertaken at this time.
This is a time to work on overcoming our weaknesses, rather than a time to mourn over our past errors—a time to die to the old ways of thinking and prepare for the new growth and life of spring.
Ultimately one experiences a loss of self-importance and discovers the true self. A self who has reincarnated, not just to indulge all the physical desires and ‘things’ that seem so important on a daily basis, but for reasons that probably have more to do with the advancement of humanity and not just one human being. Remember we are divine sparks of God. I certainly hope my soul has loftier ideals that I should strive to accomplish.
Do you really think your soul incarnated into your body, just to see how much weight you could lose, or what kind of car you can buy, or if you get to go on vacation? At what point does one come to grips with why we are truly here on this planet? Forget about yourself and stop this ‘why me Lord’ way of thinking. Someone once asked, ‘why not me? What makes me any better than anyone else?
Souls WANT to reincarnate. Why then, when this happens, does our ego – personality become so obsessed with material things, the soul is unable to do the good work it came back to do? Perhaps for some of us the difference is that somewhere inside us we DO know the difference, many people do not. There is so much we can do for others, find your true path. Just look around you, I bet there is someone who needs you. And think what a blessing this truly is, not the burden most of us have created in our minds.
So remember, the key to the work you will do for Lent is basically to try to lose one’s self-importance, and get a true picture of your Soul. (When we lose our self-importance, all the things that push our buttons no longer affect us.) Hopefully you will voluntarily give yourself over to a symbolic death. The death of one way of thinking and acting and the birth of a new one. We lose our life in order to gain it.
