Lent is a time for working on reforming our hearts

It is that time of year again; Lent is here.
It is kind of a bitter-sweet moment for me.  I really don’t like fasting and I don’t like being asked to give up time in prayer, and I don’t like giving away more of my time or treasure.  But that is exactly why I really appreciate Lent.  If I am really honest with myself, I realize that my heart needs to be converted more to the Lord.  I must learn to attach my heart to God and to become more detached from things He has created.
Jesus said that we cannot serve both God and Mammon. Lent gives me a specific time to really work on reforming my heart.  True, we should do this year-round, but there is something about a specified time that helps me to face the challenge more forcefully.  Knowing that will only last about six weeks really helps me.
In that time, we are called to give our hearts more completely to the Lord.  We focus on spending more time in prayer, and we also try to make the time we do spend in prayer more fruitful.  Lent is a great time to add the perfect prayer to our repertoire; I am speaking about Mass.  It would be a great blessing to our prayer life if we could make attending Mass during the week a priority.  Maybe every day is too much, but can we make it to Mass a couple of days a week in addition to Sunday?  Can we make it every day?  When we love someone we long to spend time with them.  Jesus longs to be with us and we are striving to belong to God.  Mass is a great place for that encounter.  There are many other ways to grow spiritually in addition to Mass, like reading the Bible and reading the lives of saints.
This enriching prayer life should be accompanied by us trying to detach from God’s created goods so that our hearts will be free to attach to The Creator.  We call this fasting.  We deny ourselves things that are good, simply so that our hearts will be free to belong to God.
When our hearts are attached to God we should find that we can see God’s presence in other persons, especially the poor.  
Our preparation for Easter, Lent, should then consist of us focusing on our prayer life, fasting and giving to our brothers and sisters in need.
— Pat Arensberg is the Director of the Office for Evangelization and Family Life. Email him at [email protected] 
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