Lent: Going Back to God

baptism,” St. Paul writes in Col. 2:12, “and you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.” He continues in 3:1-4: “If you were raised with Christ, then seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God … for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.”

Look around, and you can easily see how far we’ve gotten away from a life with Christ in His death and burial. We are very much alive to the world and all it contains. We fill our homes, our bank accounts, and our bodies with all the passing things of the world that keep us from God’s Kingdom.

During Lent we turn and go the other way, back to God. We fast, we pray, we give our money to the poor. The mark of the ashes is an outward sign that signifies an inward reality. We believe in the cross of Jesus Christ. As He has shared in our humanity, so we are invited to share in His divinity. Our sins are forgiven.

We only need to join him in a communion of flesh and blood. He has offered us His. The question for these 40 days is: Will we offer Him ours?

FATHER JAN K. SCHMIDT is a priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and currently serves in the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center as the Director of the Department for Pastoral Vitality, and as both Dean of the South-A Deanery and Rector of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter in Chains in Cincinnati.