Falling in Love with Jesus this Lent

+JMJ

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in a love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

- Joseph Whelan, S.J.

I have always been drawn to Ash Wednesday... even as a High School student, my friend Martha and I would skip school to attend an Ash Wednesday Mass... (weren't we so cool?!) There was just something deeply attractive to me, even then, about this new season that began with a remembrance of the end... the ultimate end which we all will face one day... and as a Catholic, the deep-seated belief that such an end is really a beginning. "Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return." It calls for a total examination of one's life, to make corrections, adjust one's sails and move in a new direction. As a teenager and young adult who was always drawn to the idea of self-improvement and becoming a better version of myself, I liked this... but that's about as far as it went.

I think many Catholics bemoan Lent... tis the season for giving up chocolate or coffee, or some other non-essential... fasting from meat on Fridays etc... I have come to really cherish the Lenten season, dare I say, it is now my favorite Liturgical season... but that was not always the case. While I was drawn by Ash Wednesday, I was definitively missing out on the deeper purpose of the season. Sure- give up something moderately challenging as a lukewarm reminder to The Man who suffered and died on a cross and maybe remember not to eat meat on Fridays. There was no connection to anything truly meaningful on a personal level (I did not yet have a friendship with Jesus) and my family traditions were far more spiritually inclined than theological, so it's no wonder that nothing truly earth-shattering ever came from Lent for me. Many a Lenten-season have gone by in my life with barely a recognition of it at all, or if any, a tepid one at best. But to focus on Lent as growing my relationship with Jesus as a real human person... that has been a new phenomenon to my faith and in recent years, the challenge to do just that has truly deepened my friendship with Jesus in many beautiful ways. 

I thought it quite befitting that Lent began with Ash Wednesday colliding with Valentine's Day this year. Is that not actually the true purpose of Lent? To grow in real intimacy with Jesus? To fall madly and deeply in love with The One who loves our souls most perfectly? A dear friend and I were praying together on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday and one of our intentions during that rosary was to "Fall more deeply in love with Jesus this Lent." Those words struck a place deep within my heart that I have been thinking about ever since. This year, I want to do Lent differently. We all can- if we come to see Lent from the perspective of growing in true intimacy with Jesus. I want to focus a little less on the list of things to give-up or the myriad of things I could be adding to my spiritual life in some kind of lukewarm attempt at piety. Instead I want to feverishly pursue the heart of The Man who has been feverishly pursuing my heart from all eternity. I don't want Lent to look like a series of hoops to jump through or goals to commit to. Lenten commitments are good, but if they aren't anchored to growing more deeply in relationship with Jesus, then they are just watered down and lose their real purpose. It is that deep, and personal relationship with Christ that opens our soul to eternal life. When I meet Jesus at the end of my sojourn on this earth, I hope to come face to face with a beloved and intimate friend.

Intimacy is about falling in love. It is about growing in love. It is about the journey of love. Intimacy with Jesus is no different than any other beloved relationship: It requires the heart to be engaged. It requires time spent together and hours clocked talking and getting to know the heart of the other. 

I sometimes think about the hours clocked with my own children talking about their day at bedtime... usually the bedside chats are silly and we can be easily fooled into rushing through that time. I am guilty of this more times than I care to admit. With four kids- bedtime is a production and exhausting! But that is sacred time. It is precisely during those intimate and tender moments, where hours have been clocked and trust has been built in the mundane that the harder conversations will suddenly drop. That's precisely when the big questions will come out, or the thing that's been eating at their hearts will come flooding out. And as any good parent knows, those are not the moments you want to miss! It is the same with Our Jesus. He awaits us patiently to share in every small detail of our lives, wanting to share in all of it and especially wanting to carry us through our big moments! His desire for us is even greater in our times of deep need! We need to grow in our intimacy with Him and trust that He wants to share in all of it with us! He is my great Father, but He is also The One - the Only One - who has loved every finite detail of my soul into its very existence and who waits for me to come to Him at every turn. It is as true for me as it is for you. Saint Thérèse was famously known for saying "prayer is a surge of the heart, it is a cry of recognition and of love." And Mother Teresa, "Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God's gift of Himself." Is that not intimacy? Taking some of your beloved, whatever they share, into your own heart and holding it close? And St. John Vianney, "Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself." 

Prayer is simply the heart's love song to Jesus. It's an intimate encounter of the soul between two lovers. It is a total plunge of the soul into the heart of Jesus. Within that intimacy we encounter Love, and within His Love, the soul can rest.

This Lent, I pass along to you the same prayer as my friend and I prayed before starting the Lenten season. Seek intimacy with Jesus this Lent. I can assure you that He who you seek, is already waiting for you. He is already deeply thirsting and longing for you. Perhaps, ask Saint Valentine to be your patron this Lent. Ask Saint Valentine, who sacrificed his life to the point of martyrdom for the sake of love and intimacy, for his intercession in helping you love Jesus more deeply. I challenge you to anchor everything you do this Lent to that one desire. That is my own prayer and my own heart for this Lent and I pray the same for you. So whether it be for the first time, or all over again, I pray we all fall deeply in love with Jesus this Lent.