Elijah must first come

God gives signs to show what he is about to do.

John the Baptist is one such sign who pointed to Jesus and prepared the way for his coming. John fulfilled the essential task of all the prophets: to be fingers pointing to Jesus Christ. John is the last and greatest prophet of the old kingdom, the old covenant. The Jews expected that when the Messiah would come, Elijah would appear to announce his presence. John fills the role of Elijah and prepares the way for the coming of Jesus Christ by preaching a baptism of repentance and renewal.

As watchful servants, we, too must prepare for the Lord's coming again by turning away from sin and from everything that would keep us from pursuing his will. Are you eager to do God's will and are you prepared to meet the Lord Jesus when he returns in glory?

"Lord Jesus, stir my zeal for your righteousness and for your kingdom. Free me from complacency and from compromising with the ways of sin and worldliness that I may be wholeheartedly devoted to you and to your kingdom."

source: From the desk of Don Schwager, 

hosted by Kairos Europe and the Middle East

Lent . . . Sacrifice or Renewal?

"When you search for me, you will find me; 

if you seek me with all your heart." 

~ Jeremiah 29:13 ~

We nurture our relationship with God as we live our faith. We know our connection with Him gives us the grace to grow through the easy days and the challenging days. The beauty of nurturing—of really investing in—our relationship with God is that all the benefits of that investment on our part come back to bless us! It’s really kind of a sweet deal.

Lent provides us with a reminder and plenty of weeks to put a unique focus on strengthening our faith in preparation for Easter. Sacrifice is a common element of our strengthening process during Lent; it’s meant to help remind us on a daily, or at least a weekly, basis that we need to examine and enrich and improve our commitment to living our faith.

Our sacrifices can be favorite things we decide to do without during Lent—such as a certain television show every week or desserts every evening. Our sacrifices can also include new things we chose to do—like saving a certain amount each week to make a special donation to a local charity, or adding an extra rosary or a visit to Church every week. Either way (or even both approaches!), we commit to an extra effort to be mindful of just how central our love of God is to our life.

This increased discipline of sacrifice throughout Lent often begins on a physical level; through earnest reflection and prayer we actually arrive at Holy Week spiritually energized. We may have found a thing or two we could improve on in how we live our faith. But at the end of Lent we hopefully have also found a renewed conversation with God and a renewed peace within ourselves—the peace that comes from knowing, truly knowing, He is always with us.

source: Faith Reflection @ http://www.shrineofstjude.org/

Repentance and Renewal in the season of Lent

Therefore, turn away from our sinfulness, recommit ourselves to following Jesus, and deepen our relationship and closeness to God by reflecting on His Words. We remember in Lent that our faults can lead us away from God, and also make us selfish, forgetting about the needs of others. We think for a moment about our own lives and we ask God‟s forgiveness. During this time of Lent, we learn to let go of all unnecessary things and be more mindful of our dependence on God. We fast, abstain, pray and give alms. 

Lord, during this Lenten season 

nourish us with Your word of life 

and make us one in love and prayer.

The forty days of Lent represent Jesus forty days in the desert fasting, overcoming temptations, and praying after His baptism by John the Baptist,  Let us be like Jesus who never gave in to temptations during His forty days in the desert, We to need to pray to God like Jesus did in over coming temptations.

The Church has never allowed Sundays to be kept as days of fast ... Every Sunday is a day of obligation, the paschal mystery is celebrated (Canon 1246) and is also mini Easter. 

Sunday, on which by apostolic tradition 

the paschal mystery is celebrated, 

must be observed in the universal Church 

as the primordial holy day of obligation.

(Canon 1246)

Abstinence from meat, 

or from some other food 

as determined by the Episcopal Conference, 

is to be observed on all Fridays, 

unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed 

on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

(Canon 1251)

Therefore the calculation on how forty days came about is as follows:

From Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday is 46 days and there is 6 Sundays within that period. Therefore, 46 days minus 6 Sundays equals to 40 days of Lent fasting.