Hope for the Future by pixabay.com

Faith, Hope and Love: Be transformed this Easter

Vicar-General Jan Clark - March 5, 2025

This Lent and Easter we focus on the Good News that following Jesus still brings to our world.

Choosing A Different Way

Many of us on Ash Wednesday will have received the mark of the cross on our foreheads, made with ashes from last year’s palm crosses. This mark is a reminder of our human frailty our desire to follow the way of Christ and our failure to do so. Yet also an invitation to imagine how our lives might be if we absorbed Christ’s courageous compassion into our hearts and lived fully from that reality.

In the Gospels the 40 days Jesus spends in the wilderness is preceded by his baptism and the affirmation that he is God’s beloved Son, words I believe that also undergird our vocation. We are God’s beloved children, from this identity we enter the wilderness that we might let go of all that challenges our ability to live as Christ’s people expressing the compassion, mercy and love of God in a hurting world.

Lent is upon us, a time to reflect on our identity, our relationship with God and with others. To examine our lives and to discern the personal work we need to do to become holy, integrated people, more fully able to live the demanding call of the Gospel, a very different way. Traditionally we have observed the disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving during Lent, practices that encourage us to take the inward journey that we might be free to respond more sensitively to the needs of the vulnerable and to work for the establishment of justice and peace. May your Lenten journey draw you closer to the heart of God and to your neighbour as our lives are transformed by love.

I found the quote from Nouwen a blessing in a recent Quiet Time - perhaps you will find it helpful too:

Whenever there is a lack of clarity of ambiguous circumstances, it is time to wait. Active waiting is essential to the spiritual life. In our mostly active lives and fast-paced culture, waiting is not a popular pastime. It is not something we anticipate or experience with great joy. In fact, most of us consider it a waste of time. Perhaps this is because the culture in which we live is basically saying, “Get going! Do something! Show you are able to make a difference! Don't just sit there and wait.” But the paradox of waiting is that it requires full attention to the present moment, with the expectation of what is to come and the patience to learn from the act of waiting.
Henri J Nouwen

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."

- Psalm 27: 14