Time to get ready

I am starting to think about Lent! Ash Wednesday is just 12 days from now and my great desire is to be prepared when Lent begins and not just ease my way into it! Lent is a special gift from God – a gift from the Church – a 40-day season of grace. As Christians it is really not something to take lightly. Perhaps the tragic plane crash outside Buffalo, NY last night made me realize more and more that life is fragile and for some of us eternity could be just around the corner.

In my Daily Missal this morning I read some excerpts from the 15th century spiritual classic, The Imitation of Christ by St. Thomas a Kempis. When I entered Religious Life I received this book as a gift. According to Wikipedia, the Imitation of Christ is "a manual of devotion intended to assist the soul with its pursuit of holiness and communion with God. Its sentences are statements, not arguments, and are pitched in the highest key of Christian experience…

"The book gives counsel to read the scriptures, statements about the uses of adversity, advice for submission to authority, warnings against temptation and how to resist it, reflections about death and the judgment, meditations upon the oblation of Christ, and admonitions to flee the vanities of the world.” (Click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imitation_of_Christ_(book) to read a fuller account of this treasure.)

This book might be a wonderful guide for your Lenten journey. I am sure you can get it in any book store or on-line. However, happily I did find the full text at this site: www.ccel.org/ccel/kempis/imitation/formats/imitation1.0.pdf Read the Imitation in small bites and think about the spiritual wisdom it contains. Perhaps you can pick a few lines for each day’s meditation.

Don't be caught off guard; I am giving you fair warning - Lent is coming! Get ready for this special journey of a lifetime!