Put on Christ

+JMJ+

Ave Maria!

What joy to begin the holy season of Lent. Let us remember that this is not a time set aside to achieve our own agenda, but rather to conform to God's will for us.

On Friday, I spoke to 60 middle school students in Chicago, and I gave them a challenge: to wake up every day during Lent when the alarm clock GOES OFF...not thirty minutes later when their parents yell at them to wake up...and to give the first 5 minutes of the day in prayer to God...to offer their day to God, to listen to Him...

I promised them that if they followed through, their lives would be changed. How could it be otherwise, when you invite God to be actively involved in your life?

So often, we want to check things off a list...to 'get things done.' We are so about doing...but we rarely learn to be. Papa John Paul said very clearly that in order to do, we must first learn to be...and the only place we can learn to truly be is in the presence of God.

What better resolution could we bring into these 40 Days then to offer ourselves wholly to God, to His desires for us, His will for us. Ask Him how to pray, how to fast. Offer up your intentions to the Immaculata, the Virgin Mary, for surely she who is closest to Christ knows how best to ask that our petitions be answered. When you offer up mortifications, surrender the merits to the Immaculata, for she knows where the graces are most desperately needed.

This Lent, may it be all about our desire to conform ourselves to Christ...to be broken down and built back up. May it be about God's will for us...let this be our desire. St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe said that God is pleased even with our desire to please Him. Even as we stumble along the way...if our desire is pure, God will smile...He is delighted by us, regardless of our 'success' as long as our intent is to do His holy will. What consolation!

I hope to post more regularly during these 40 Days, and in doing so may this be an offering to Jesus, our beloved Savior, at the hands of His Immaculate Mother...and may it only point to His love for us!