My sister-in-law told me recently she loves Easter but hates Lent. I get that.
This pesky liturgical season of Lent, which began this year with Ash Wednesday on Feb. 18, is the solemn Christian religious observance in the liturgical year commemorating the 40 days Jesus Christ spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, before beginning his public ministry.
Once the period of preparation for baptism at Easter, Lent was designed as a period of self-examination. Who needs it? Well, turns out we do. Actually, we need self-examination 365 days a year — no time off for good behavior! But Lent is a very intentional time of reflection. Forty days doesn’t necessarily suffice, but it’s a very good start.
And what if we turned that solemn part on its head? What if we considered the joy of journeying with Jesus through these 40 days?
I understand my sister-in-law’s objection to Lent. We tend to resist self-examination. For some of us, self-examination perhaps has led in the past to beating ourselves up emotionally, not unlike the monks who used to flagellate themselves with whips as punishment for real or imagined sins. It need not be so.
Let me offer a simple method to utilize this Lenten season and perhaps beyond. This is called “daily examen,” which was part of my training in spiritual guidance. There are many variations of it, originally initiated by a Spanish priest and theologian and one of the founders of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in the early 1500s.
According to IgnatianSpirituality.com, “The daily examen is a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us. The examen is an ancient practice in the church that can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience. The method presented here is adapted from a technique described by Ignatius Loyola in his spiritual exercises. St. Ignatius thought that the examen was a gift that came directly from God, and that God wanted it to be shared as widely as possible. One of the few rules of prayer that Ignatius made for the Jesuit order was the requirement that Jesuits practice the examen twice daily — at noon and at the end of the day. It’s a habit that Jesuits, and many other Christians, practice to this day.”
Ask God for light. I want to look at my day with God’s eyes, not merely my own.
Give thanks. The day I have just lived is a gift from God. I give thanks for it.
Review the day. I carefully look back on the day just completed, being guided by the Holy Spirit.
Face your shortcomings. I face what is wrong — in my life and in me.
Look forward to the day to come. I ask where I need God in the day to come.
Blessings on your Lenten journey.
The Rev. Kate Stulce is an ordained minister and author of Dream in Progress and a weekly blog kateshopecafe.net.