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Dear St. Christopher’s Family,
We often think of Lent as a Journey. That’s fitting for us, as our patron, Christopher, is revered as the protector of travelers. Our tradition is that we follow Christ for these weeks to Jerusalem, and then walk through his passion, death, and resurrection, with him. Often we adopt some penance or practice that will remind us of this on a daily basis, because our collective attention span has a hard time with a 6-week season. But the journey I just described is not really ours, even if, very prayerfully, we imagine ourselves walking that road with Jesus and his disciples. Were we to travel to Israel today and place our feet in the exact footsteps of Jesus, presuming we could find them, we still would be making our own journey, and not Jesus’.
The common theme for all journeys in our tradition (Abraham, Moses, Ezra and Nehemiah) is that something unknown waits at the end of a true journey. This isn’t a vacation, or a work trip, or even a quick weekend get-away. A journey takes us someplace we’ve never been, or at least into a frame of mind we’ve never held.
That’s truly what it means to Repent. The Greeks called it METANOIA, or “going beyond your own mind.” Perhaps better translated: “Getting out of our own way.” If just one time each day, you think about how God might change your life this Easter, Lent will have done its job. I look forward to seeing you on this road the next six weeks.
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