Lenten Reflection: Christ Fulfills Our Heat’s Desires
The season of Lent is a period of sacrifice and self-reflection. While it is true that Lent is a time of prayer and fasting it is easy to feel like we are struggling. It is important to love Lent because it offers us an opportunity to take a perspective of love that all the efforts that we are making are for the sake of growth in our loving relationship with Jesus. The goodness and the suffering in life can be something that reveals His love for you because everything is a gift from God.
Here, Father Ethan Moore reflecting on living Lent with joy, explains the close relationship between the Eucharist and the fulfillment of our heat’s desires:
"I noticed the very first thing the priest does when he comes into the Mass. Before he even says a single word, the priest bows down and he kisses the altar. He kisses the place where heaven comes down to earth, where Jesus Christ in the Eucharist makes Himself known to us in this humble and yet profound form. And the priest and the deacon alone have the honor and privilege to reverence this place. See, that’s the thing. The Lord can put desires on our heart that we may not understand in the moment, but He puts them there to fulfill them in a way that utterly only He can. And when He does, it brings Him glory.
And so, what the Lord has put on your heart for this Lent, He wants to fulfill. He wants to bring to fruition so that you can give Him glory, so that you can live in glory, and be a person of joy. So He works through relationships, He works through the desires of our heart, and, lastly, He worked through me and through all of us in prayer. [ ... ]
He is present to us in the finite details of our ordinary lives. And He actually cares about where we’re at. And the greatest response we can give Him is just that thanksgiving. To enter into prayer and just delight in the fact that we are loved by God. As we begin this retreat, may we see God through our relationships, may we hear Him in the desires of our heart, and may we be receptive to the ways of prayer that lead us to bringing Him glory. For He is a good and loving God."
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