The Rubber Band

Lent can be intense, but there is a reason for that. This most sacred season draws us out of ourselves. It is comfortable to remain in mediocrity. Nothing challenging. Nothing calling us to sacrifice. Nothing needed to change. We can go through our whole lives like that and find ourselves in a sort of complacency. If we didn't have these beautiful liturgical seasons, we would never strive to enter the narrow gate. It would just foster that sort of "coasting."

Yet, there is an element of the "rubber band." We don't want to pull and stretch something so much and so tightly that it snaps. There is an ebb and flow to the spiritual life. We strive to move forward (but sometimes in reality we are going backwards) but we must keep beginning again, beginning again, beginning again. The rubber band. It pulls and stretches us but also keeps us balanced.

The rubber band of Lent teaches us about growth. We can't rush growth, so there are the forty days. Forty days to prepare. Forty days to go deeper. Forty days to seek God with all our hearts so that when the glorious feast of Easter arrives, we can offer ourselves to the Crucified and Risen Christ, a heart disposed to receive Him.

Now that we are entering Passiontide, the last two weeks in preparation, we can renew all our resolutions and embrace all that He sends during these last days with fervor. He wants to draw us in union, in growth--so let the rubber band fly.