What We Did During Lent: Pray for Faith and Wait for God
About 25 years ago, a member of my extended family was going through a very difficult time, it was like life and death for him. Seeing the bad shape he was in, I asked God how could He let this happen to my relative? What vague sense of faith I had in God seemed to vanish going through this.
Still, I was concerned enough now that I had nobody to pray to, so I went to confession and told the priest that I lost faith in God. The elderly priest wisely told me that his faith was shaken a couple of times before, too, and what he did was pray for faith and wait for God. He advised me to do the same, and I did.
I continued to feel nothing for or from God and could hardly pray since I did not believe in His love. However, a few months later, as I was cooking in the kitchen one morning, suddenly an overwhelming sense of love overcame me. It was just pure love, with no explanation, no reason, no understanding on my part, all I know is that it was God’s immense love and it brought me to tears.
I was so overwhelmed that I wanted to note the date and I went to write it on the wall calendar, only to find that it was the first day of the Lenten season that year.
That was my first experience of His love. Later experiences came after much painful purification and understanding of the necessity of our suffering.
Looking back, it seems like He was foretelling to me the message of love and suffering, all mingling together - His powerful love He let me feel on the first day of Lent, which later became the theme of my relationship with Him.
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What We Did During Lent
We invite you to share in the bulletin special Lent practices of your family now or in the past. We are parishioners of different cultures and ethnic backgrounds. We can be inspired by each other. Limit is about 200 words.
Give or email to Fr. Jeremy your Lenten stories. frjeremyh@gmail.com
Fr. Jeremy