By Bro. Marcellinus Suwa

One of the seasons in the Catholic Church’s liturgical year is Lent. It is a period of reflection and renewal that involves heightened spiritual observances and practices. Principal among them is intensified prayer commitment, observance of various kinds of fasts, and a more manifest expression of charity, as required by the Church. Individuals and groups also engage in other faith-based practices in the spirit of the season.

The Church envisioned that at the end of the period, Catholics would have:

>Had a more proximate relationship with God.

>Imbibed a rich prayer life.

>Come to the deep understanding that God towers above our desires and pleasures.

>Come to the profound knowledge that the Christian life is a sacrificial one.

> Realize that the needy are attended to empathetically and more regularly.

>Become more conscious that sin separates and distances us from our creator, and the imperative to renounce soul-destroying worldly passions.

   Should the conclusion of Lent and the resumption of Alleluia vitiate the discipline of the Lenten season? The answer should be in the negative. This is so as the essence of Lent is not to embrace the values of our faith for 40 days (47 including Sundays) and live the remaining days of the year in spiritual darkness? This will be akin to Saul becoming Paul and being confirmed Saul after Lent. His life was transformed after the encounter at Damascus. So should ours.

At the beginning of Lent, we approach God with sins like scarlet. God invites us to “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning; and tear your hearts and not your garments (Joel 2:12-13). At the end, we should be as white as snow (Is.1:18). As the adulterous woman brought to Jesus, so we come to God with our “adulteries.” But we leave with the admonition “Go and sin no more.”(Jn.8:11).

 As we draw the curtains on 2025 Lenten season, let us keep faith with all the rewarding outcomes and take the Christian life as that of a daily conversion. I pray that, like Paul, we will say at the end of our time on earth, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness.”(2 Tim 4:7-8). And Christ would joyfully proclaim, “Come, blessed of my Father! Take possession of the kingdom prepared for you–“(Matt.25:34)

   HAPPY EASTER