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Lent is intended to resurrect our joy. Lent originally meant “springtime”: the word comes from the Old English word for “spring,” lencten, which came from lengan, “to make longer” — reminding us that the slow, wonderful lengthening of this season in our souls can signal an end to a winter of bitterness and the flowering of Christ’s love in us. ~~ Stretching Our Souls by Carmen Acevedo Butcher
To this date, how much have change with how you view or observe the Holy Week from your younger years?
I’d like to believe that the strengthening of faith comes with time. When I was younger, I see Holy Week as vacation minus the fun (as we were often told to slow down and be quiet during this time of the year).
But as I grow older, I began to view Lent in a different perspective. Probably because I have come to understand that this is among the most important events in the Christian calendar. Because this is the best time to open one’s heart to God and to reflect on how your life has been over the years.
“..an end to a winter of bitterness and the flowering of Christ’s love in us” — what do you think this line speaks about? Forgiveness.
The act of forgiving is probably one of the most difficult things to do for most people. When you hold ill will inside your heart to somebody who did you wrong or have offended you, how do you feel?
It’s difficult to forget something painful and ugly. I myself have my own share of a situation that had put me in choosing between planting a revenge or not.
Without going too much into details, I was put in an unfavorable situation by an online hater and poser. Whoever that is (we were not able to discover who’s behind the attack), two things are certain about what he/she did — to put me down and to destroy something beautiful that I care for so much.
In this Internet age, being bullied online could probably one of the worst things anyone could ever try to control. But as long as you know who you really are and the only views that matter are those from the people who truly care for you, whatever ugly shameful publicity haters could create, won’t change you.
The attack eventually died down. What did I do with the attacker? Nothing. A malicious online assault is ugly. But getting even is uglier.
Was it easy to bear all that has happened? No. Was it a wise decision not to fire back? Yes. Was it easy to forget? No. Was it easy to forgive? That took a while.
This Lenten Season, why don’t we all try to recall the circumstances that caused us to feel that forgiving is a difficult thing? Maybe this is the stage where we have to endure the hard feelings for the last time. Maybe this has to be ‘the end to a winter of bitterness’ for all of us.
The Holy Week is the best time to free our hearts from the animosity that we’ve gone through in the past. The future would not be sweeter and better if the burdens of the past are still having a great time inside us.
To end this, let me share this quote from Paulo Coelho:
“Forgive but do not forget, or you will be hurt again. Forgiving changes the perspectives. Forgetting loses the lesson.”
