Attempt the intimate

As we prepare to celebrate Ash Wednesday this week, another Lenten season is upon us. I am reminded by the conversation of students in my school of my own school days and my first experiences with lent. Sr. Clara told us that we needed to give up something we liked to show our love for Jesus, and so we did. We gave up candy, cookies, cake, watching television, all kinds of things to show how much Jesus meant to us. The only problem was that we never caught on to the real meaning of this abstinence. The things we gave up never really changed our lives, but rather made us desire these things even more as lent's ending approached.
  Many years later, when I had become a deacon, I gave up my Friday evenings. Friday's were Stations of the Cross, and Mary and I volunteered to do stations every Friday night. This seemed fine to the priests since it was not a mass. That meant a priest was not required to preside. So every Friday, rain, snow, cold, Mary and I went to the church, sometimes with only a handful of people, but it became a big part of our lives. When lent ended, we missed it. This had truly changed us. We had found a way to move closer to Jesus than before we had begun and, after all, that is what the abstinence is all about. The new pastor changed back to sharing the stations and we never got that chance again. But we still were closer to Christ because of the experience.
  What is in the way of you experiencing Jesus in a more intimate way? Are you working so many hours to make ends meet that Jesus has been put in the back seat? Does going out with the gang seem more fun than spending an hour with The Lord?  Now is the time to change that. Now is the chance to try a life without these things and see what can be. You may not make it. You may go back to candy and cookies and TV...... And you may not. You may find Jesus is a bigger part of who you are and who you were made to be. But you will never know unless you make the attempt.