“Even the King got down off his throne, put on sackcloth and sat in ashes” Jonah 3:6

For me this describes all that Lent is about.  Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity that is the Almighty God, worthy of all honour, glory and worship from ourselves, steps down from his Heavenly throne to live life like we do.  Not only does he humble himself to become human but he fasts and is subjected to temptation, pain and suffering.

 Do you know and believe that you are loved this much?

In today’s psalm we hear the words:

 “Like the deer that yearns
for running streams, so my soul is yearning
for you my God.

My soul is thirsting for God,
the God of my life…”

Psalm 42

I love these words, and usually they create a lovely image in my mind of a deer by a running stream, but this is not what they are really about. They are about thirsting, really thirsting.  While I was reflecting on this I realised that we, in this part of the world, don’t actually know what it feels like to thirst, to live life without a ready supply of clean water, thinking we could die of thirst. 

To thirst is to be in desperate need with the whole of our lives.  I really believe that if we could truly grasp for just a second the extent of this amazing love that God has for each one of us we would be thirsting for God with the whole of our life, nothing else would be worth living for.  In Psalm 8 we hear the words “what is man that you spare a thought for him, mortal man that you keep him in mind? Yet you have made him little less than a god…” I can’t understand or explain this love.

St Catherine of Sienna said “it’s Heaven all the way to Heaven…”  What I am sure of is that to know this love that God has for us is to live Heaven.  I believe that is what God wants for every moment of our lives.  Our prayer, fasting and almsgiving are all opportunities to make space in our lives to come closer to this love we are living Heaven, united with God, which is what we were created to be.




Maria Pleydell,
From Epping, Residing in Wigan,
Trainee RE teacher.