Do Lent!

02-28-2016Weekly ReflectionFr. Bing Colasito

I became really conscious of the Lenten Season in my High School. My Dad had a Tagalog (National Language) version of the Senaculo Passion Play. When we transferred to the province of my Dad in the late 70’s, my Dad with his brother translated the whole play into the local dialect, Waraynon. I remember the many nights and weekends we went to my Dad’s hometown Tolosa, Leyte (18 miles away from our home) for the practices, and sometimes we would bring and serve snacks to the participants of the play. The Senaculo Passion Play eventually became one of the highlights of Holy Week. People from other towns came to watch the play on Good Friday from 11:00am-1:00pm at the town’s plaza, just before the Siete Palabras, The Seven Last Words. So that doing Lent in those years was so memorable and full of sacrifices. We were reminded always of fasting, abstinence, and the daily Stations of the Cross.

But there where times I did not fully understand the meaning of all those Lenten rituals and customs. But we did all these Lenten traditions because they were the things the whole Catholic Philippines was doing. “As they say, we are Catholics because we are doing Catholic things.” I am a priest by doing priestly things.

During the time of Jesus, He did Lent but it was not yet called Lent at that time. He started the Lenten Observance. He fasted 40 days and nights until He was really hungry. He prayed throughout these days until He became really intimate with God the Father. His fasting gave Him the will not to aspire for inordinate things of power, glory, prestige and riches. The forty days was R&R for Jesus; not Rest and Recreation, but RETREAT and RENEWAL.

Doing Lent is meaningful if we all include a RETREAT in our Lenten observances; that is a RETREAT into the inner sanctum of our being. In the RETREAT we listen to the inner voice, the voice of God. It is a time of prayer to be strong against the devil of hypocrisy. We could allot 30 minutes a day for Scriptures or Spiritual Readings aside from our usual spiritual reflection. My RETREAT will not be complete without going to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Stations of the Cross.

Doing Lent could be RENEWING our resolve to be more patient, uncomplaining, less criticizing, and many other resolutions. Jesus was tempted by the devil for forty days to stop doing His fasting, worshiping, and the detachment from worldly things and power. Aren’t these some of our own temptations? Of all the temptations this Season of Lent, the strongest is “doing nothing” rather than Doing our Lent.

Brothers and Sisters, we are already in Lent, DO LENT! Do something!

Be in God,
Fr. Bing

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