"Keep moving forward!"

As I sat realising that we’re already halfway through Lent, I decided to give myself a quick midway review of how I’ve done so far at sticking to my Lenten “promises”. Not so brilliant I could see. I started to feel a little bit disappointed to be honest, as this Lent I thought that I could be really good, do really well and feel great at the end of it, which is rather selfish really. After a little more reflection, I decided to call it quits as it was like opening a can of worms and my list of mistakes, slip ups and failures evidently out-weighed the good.

However, I realised that this wasn’t the aim of Lent. It’s not to focus on our failures of re-indulging into a bar of chocolate or dusting off the box of Benson and Hedges and having a quick cig or giving in to any temptation. Neither is our aim to use Lent as an excuse to take up that diet that we never got round to actually starting in January.

We cannot have prayer without fasting (whether it is fasting of food or fasting of any form) and neither can we have fasting without prayer; you may as well call that one “the Atkins diet”. The aim of Lent is to simply get rid of those things that hinder our relationship with our Creator. Our Lenten disciplines are supposed to ultimately transform our entire person: body, soul, and spirit. Our Lenten disciplines are supposed to help us become more like Christ. Eastern Christians call this process theosis, which St. Athanasius aptly describes as "becoming by grace what God is by nature".

But when we do slip up, does God frown? Does he tut and shake his head? Does he wiggle a finger accusingly in our direction? Is there, on His stairway to heaven, a single step labelled ‘The Naughty Step’ to which he points if we do wrong? As amusing as some of these images of God may seem this couldn’t be any further from the truth! Before we have even committed any form of sin, we’ve been forgiven.

“You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight.
   You know everything I'm going to say
 before I start the first sentence.”

    Psalm 139 (The Message)

As you may’ve read in other posts, God is Love. His love is the Holy Spirit and this Love was made incarnate through the Virgin Mary. Word made flesh, Christ our Lord, Emmanuel.

And this love - It’s endless, unfathomable, incomprehensible, limitless, immeasurable, boundless, ungraspable, and EVERLASTING! And nothing can stop us from having God’s love.

“For I am certain of this: that neither death, nor life, nor angel, nor prince, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, or height, or depth, not any created thing, can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord”

Romans 8: 38-39

Incredible.

I reluctantly watched Disney Pixar’s ‘Meet the Robinsons’ last week and yet the message that I got from that film was truly inspiring.

1. Family supports.

2. Rejoice in failure as it shows areas for improvement next time.

3. ‘KEEP MOVING FORWARD’

So as we continue on our Lenten journeys, our own pilgrimage ups our own personal Calvary, forget the failures, forget your flaws and reflect on the Christ within.

‘One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.’

Philippians 3: 13-14

Fergus Williams-Tanton, 20

Music Co-ordinator Animate Youth Ministries

Archdiocese of Liverpool