In the season of Lent which is drawing near, beginning with the ashes that are a sign of our human frailty, we are reminded of our need for an ongoing conversion of heart and spiritual renewal in Jesus Christ.
The Church sets aside these 40 days as a special time of purification and preparation to celebrate the paschal mystery – the passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus. This is a time when we renew our efforts to share in the new life that Jesus won for us.
How does this happen? The answer to that question is why so much emphasis is placed on our renewing our baptismal commitment during Lent. It is precisely in the waters of baptism that we are reborn in the Holy Spirit and that sin, personal and original, is washed away and we become members of the Body of Christ – his Church. These coming 40 days call us to deepen our faith in that transforming mystery.
Walking with our family of faith as we make this Lenten journey with Christ are those who desire to also become members of Christ’s body. They include catechumens seeking to be baptized and already-baptized candidates coming from a non-Catholic ecclesial community, and they have been preparing for months through their participation in the Rite of the Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) program.
Some time ago, I visited with students at the Catholic Center of the University of Maryland. They were in the process of preparing for this faith journey that all of us renew during Lent. What made this particularly important was that a number of students were a part of RCIA. Some of these were young students who, after having been invited to our spiritual home by other Catholic students on campus, were now preparing to become Catholic. The others were involved in supporting the RCIA program and the faith journey of their friends.
As I sat down to dinner with them, I asked the students who were already Catholic for their recommendations of what their friends next to them should do after they were received into the Church with the sacraments of initiation. Each student offered a different answer:
· Stay connected to the Catholic community so you can experience the benefit of it;
· Take advantage of Confession and go often;
· Be comfortable sharing the faith and inviting others to come to Mass;
· Focus regularly on your personal relationship with Jesus, which is at the very heart of being a disciple;
· Find time every day for some prayer because prayer life is essential to sustaining your faith;
· Remember that your faith journey is not completed with the sacraments of initiation, but continues on and is now entering a new stage;
· Learning about your faith and becoming more deeply aware of it is a life-long learning experience;
· Never be ashamed to ask questions about your faith and if you do not know something make it a point of asking; and
· Always stay close to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Prayers to her help strengthen our faith.
Turning to the students who would be entering into the communion of the Church, I then asked them what it was that they found at the school, the Catholic Student Center and the RCIA program that was particularly inviting. They said that what they had found in the Catholic ministry there was a welcoming community where they readily made friends and never felt the isolation that many students can feel, especially when they are experiencing university life for the first time. They also noted that they found great spiritual strength and encouragement in seeing that all the people in the RCIA program tried to go to Mass several times in the course of the week, not just on Sundays.
The observations and recommendations offered at this dinner are, I think, just as applicable to you and to me today. The new life implanted in our hearts through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in baptism is the life of God – a divine seed that needs to be nurtured, nourished, cultivated so that it can grow and flower into life everlasting.
As we look forward during this holy Lenten season to our salvation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we not only remember, but seek to be participants in the mystery of our redemption. By renewing ourselves in the Spirit, through our daily prayer and by our own outreach in reconciliation and understanding to those around us, we become ready for rising with the Lord on that glorious Easter morning.
