Sometimes people ask, “What are you doing for Lent?” There is one thing to give up during Lent – sin.
This season of Lent is a preparation for renewing our baptismal promises during the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night. Paul says, when writing to the Romans (6:3-6), that when we were baptized we died to our old way of life to live a new way of life.
When we were baptized we died to our old sinful ways, we left sin behind. Therefore Paul says that when we were baptized we went into the tomb with Jesus and rose out of the tomb again with Jesus to a new life.
The season of Lent is to give us time once again to die to our old sinful ways and rise out of the tomb with Jesus to a new way of life so that by the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night when we renew our baptismal vows we will also have renewed our lives. That is why the First Preface of Lent says,
Each year you give us this joyful season
when we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery
with mind and heart renewed.
The season of Lent begins with the imposition of ashes on our foreheads in the sign of the cross. The ashes are a “mark of our repentance,” the Liturgy tells us, a sign of blessing upon the “sinner who asks for God’s forgiveness.”
I wish you a holy season of Lent, a joyful season of Lent, a time in which you grow closer to the Lord and leave sin behind.