The last week has knocked us all about.  Scenes of Russian tanks moving across Ukraine and the creation of a new flood of refugees whose fate remains unknown is heart breaking to witness.  Closer to home we have been exposed to death and destruction as flood waters have wreaked havoc across New South Wales and Queensland.  War and violence, floods and destruction.  These all make us feel very vulnerable.  We long for it all to end.  We long for peace, for clear skies, for calm seas.  And as we experience vulnerability and as we long for that which we do not have, the Church gives us the season of Lent.

Lent is the season that reminds us, actually, that vulnerability is not a passing state.  As we begin the season of Lent we are reminded that each and every human being is a fragile and vulnerable person.  We place ashes on our heads as a reminder that we are made from the dust of the earth.  We have been brought into being by the God who breathed life unto us.  And the one who breathed life into us does not abandon us.  God keeps breathing life into us and re-creating us, or bringing us to completion.  People often talk about ‘re-inventing’ themselves or ‘re-creating’ themselves.  For Christians, this is what God is always doing with us.  God is always breathing new life into us and creating us anew.  God breathes life into us when we are ill; when we are struggling in relationships; when we feel like giving up; when we cannot find a way through the latest impasse of our lives; when our children challenge us; when our parents are ill or dying; when countries are at war and when the forces of nature are overpowering us.

The season of Lent asks us to let God breathe.  Let God breathe into us, to reach and renew us where we are most fragile.  The season of Lent invites us to be in touch with our weaknesses and needs.  Not to wallow in our incompleteness but to rejoice in the God who is there in those very places of need, breathing life into us.  To accept our human condition and to welcome the Lord of life into our lives can move us to reach out to others, recognising that they are just like us.  And that is the beginning of peace.  That is the beginning of compassion and empathy.

Let’s hope and pray this Lent that the God of life breathe new life into each of us, and our world, once again.

By Fr Brendan Reed