Fr. José Juan Sánchez Jácome / ACN.- There are people for whom a single experience has been enough to convince them of God and draw near to Him. They have lived a spiritual experience so profound that it touched their hearts. That is why they changed their lives, committed themselves, and set out to follow Christ Jesus.
These are special cases—not the case for everyone—where such an intense experience leads people to convert and turn to God Our Lord, beginning a new life.
But in most cases, it is necessary to go through a process. And possibly we are not always prepared and willing to start a process in faith, since a process like this requires perseverance, trust, and sacrifice.
A process in faith gradually immerses us in an environment of discipline that is also necessary for us to achieve the main objectives of our lives. Christians thus assume the time of Lent, which we will begin on the next Ash Wednesday, as a time that will consolidate our conversion to God through prayer, effort, and discipline.
If someone asks how to know God, how to follow God, how to have an experience of God’s love, one answer lies in this process of the Lenten season that involves trust, perseverance, and sacrifice, as parts of a path that will gradually reveal God’s presence to us.
Although we leave many things halfway, and not only in spiritual life—it happens to us in medical treatments, in the workplace, in the academic environment, and in family processes—however, we must commit ourselves during this Lenten season to strengthen ourselves in spiritual life.
If one wants changes in spiritual life, if we want to progress, and if we really want to have an experience of God’s love, we must commit to this process that requires us to persevere. In Christian life, things are not obtained on the first try. This is not magic. Therefore, perseverance is needed.
A great deal of trust is also needed, to take God at His word, which will not cease to speak and manifest His message. It is important in this process to depend on God’s word, to trust in His word, and to know that it is a word that will get us out of troubles and put us back on the path of life.
We also have to learn to be sacrificial; when we are interested in health, in image, in professional life, in economic progress, we do not hesitate to sacrifice. And that must be said of spiritual life: if we truly want to be at peace, if we are interested in overcoming many of our tendencies to sin. If we are interested in knowing God more deeply, we are called to enter an environment of sacrifices so that in this way we assume this process as part of the spiritual discipline that we all need.
How we need spiritual discipline! In many moments of life we have said: “enough with the lies, enough with corruption, enough with sin, enough with vices,” etc. In many moments of life we have felt disgust for sin, we have realized how sin hurts. We have felt in good faith the need to be better and to get out of that impasse.
We have realized that we have an aspiration for change, good feelings to be better people, to leave evil behind and to set out on the Lord’s path. But we have also realized that good feelings are not enough. One can say: “I want to change, I want to be better, I want to leave this story of evil and sin,” and we try. But if we are not disciplined, we stagnate or end up succumbing.
How good that there are good feelings and a great disposition, but we must assume a discipline. If we do not do so, we will not be up to the task of facing the spirit of evil.
We are in time to travel this pedagogical path that the Lenten season offers us, to sincerely convert from our sins and have a greater experience of God’s love. We will come to discover that it is not only our need and our desire to seek God, but that He takes the initiative to seek us and is speaking to us softly, as Fr. Natalio says:
Examine your heart, in which perhaps, for some time, the illusion of something great has been burning. Think if it might not be God who is speaking to you softly, with the words of a friend, behind the apparent monotony of life. Consider who is gently knocking on your soul. Perhaps He has been speaking to you for some time, and you have not yet discovered it. – Fr. Natalio
Let us keep in mind the invitation that the Church makes to us this Ash Wednesday to open ourselves to God’s love in our process of conversion, as Fr. José F. Rey Ballesteros reflects:
Today is the day when we realize that it is not the rest of the world who does everything wrong, but us.
Today is the day when we recognize that our conversion is urgent, because the path we are on does not lead us to God, but takes us away from Him.
Today is the day when we assume, once and for all, that by ourselves, with our own strength alone, we cannot convert.
Today is the day when we prostrate ourselves before God, acknowledge and weep for our faults, and beg for help from heaven.
Today is the day when, through fasting, we will know that God alone is enough, and everything that is not God is superfluous to us, even though until today it seemed indispensable.
Today is the day when God’s mercy and compassion toward us are announced to us.
Today is the day when Christ is made sin for us, so that we may be the righteousness of God in Him.
Today begins the time of silence, mercy, love, and salvation.
Who said that Lent is sad? It is painful, but it is not sad. It is the time of God’s Love for sinners.”