real repentance

How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization! –Eric Hoffer

Conditions are the reflections of our meditations and nothing else. The Science of Mind pg 291

We have moved overnight from the foolishly sacred to the solemnly so. How best to keep Lent? In traditional Catholicism, on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter, fresh palm fronds are handed out to worshippers. These are then taken home ad placed on a wall behind a crucifix. The following spring, the now-dried palms are returned to the church, where they are ground and baked to ash, to be used by a priest today, Ash Wednesday, to mark the shape of a cross onto each communicant’s forehead.

For the metaphysician, there is a wealth of interpretation possible here, for great personal spiritual benefit. Take just the simple palm frond: keeping anything for almost a year in a place of constant veneration must help maintain the observer’s mind in a reverent state. Much more than that though, Lent is a period of reflection, a “soul-searching,” and repentance.

Repentance is a hard word –“[after hearing Jesus’ teaching], many of the disciples said, “This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?: (John 6:60) – but do you know what it means? Repentance means to think again, or to make a new choice. Thus the Lenten work is really a rededication to our commitment all year: to pray and mediate; notice our patterns of thought, feeling and behavior; and be better people by making wiser and more loving use of the life with which we’re gifted.

Today I claim power to choose again and turn my life’s path in a new direction. Inspiration fills me with clear options for being the person I was born to be.