A Time for Reconciliation

Lent is a time of reconciliation. A time when we make space in our lives to think about our relationship with our heavenly Father and the ways in which we are responding or failing to respond to his love and care for us.

One of the principle stumbling blocks we face in making a constructive and creative response is that we often have a distorted image of God. Such distortions have their origins in a variety of sources.We may have been given certain impressions of God from our parents or teachers which have remained with us in adult life.

We may have had difficulty coping with a crisis and feel that we were abandoned by God at that time. We may have found it difficult to cope with changes in our life and/or in the Church, and feel lost and distanced from the God we thought we knew. We may have had a bad experience with a priest, a fellow Christian or a Church organization which has made us question the God of the Catholic Church. We may in fact, have no feelings of faith perhaps backed up by a barrenness in prayer, which prompts us to question whether there is a God at all.

All these reasons are understandable. It's very easy to "lose" the real God in our world and in our life. It's easy to come to feel like a displaced person or a wandering soul in search of a home. Catholics are no exception to these feelings. The fact that we do wonder and we do question is a healthy sign. It shows that God and our faith are still of significance to us. The rumor of God is alive and kicking, even if we sometimes feel very unsure of what to do about it. It shows too, that we care enough to be conscious of the existence of "something more" than the surface experiences of life.