“Renewal,” it is part of what God created as the natural process for His creation on earth, be it internal, external, physical or spiritual. We see it visually in the created natural realm in as the renewal of the spring season brings life back to the earth’s plants and animals. We can hear it in a baby’s cry, God’s covenant of life with humankind. We can touch it as we hug a loved one who has fought cancer into remission and been given new life. We can smell it in the holy incense of the Christmas season as the Church celebrates anew the birth of Jesus. We can taste it in the Holy Eucharist, the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord.

It is during this season of Lent that the Catholic faithful journey into what is the most important renewal, the internal, spiritual kind, where one can make a quiet reflection upon their relationship with Jesus. It is a time to be devout, to take some personal one-on-one time with Jesus, to move out into the desert of one’s soul and ask Jesus to come and renew it with His life giving Love.

This contemplation of God is particular to humankind and humankind alone. It is in this exercise of mind and heart and soul that we seek, just for “seekings” sake. It is also in this action that we are able to attain a higher knowing of the truth we seek. In a much harried world, most of us do not take the time necessary to contemplate the truths that God has given us in His sacred word and in the sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son. Lent is a calling to our inner soul to connect, to lay aside the routine and demands of day to day life, and to seek God out. There is no time taken away from what you may deem so important, that will not be taken care of, if you but only give God some earnest time in contemplation of His divine love and providence.

I will end with what Saint Thomas Aquinas said:

“It remains, then, that man’s ultimate happiness consists in the contemplation of wisdom, which is the consideration of things divine.”

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