During Lent, we can become very conscious of the things that prevent us from having life-giving relationships with others. Our self-centeredness and concern only with our own salvation can concentrate on freeing us from sin while picking apart the faults of others. At the heart of Lent is the reality that we are called to encounter the person of Christ as ourselves. As St Paul says, "Nothing outweighs the advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." This is not about just a knowing about Jesus but an actual desire to meet him with our whole life. We do not achieve this by seeking perfection on our own terms but rather a faith in the person of Christ. It is this encounter which changes not only the life of the women caught in adultery but also those who would have stoned her to death. This is what is primary that our lives emerge out of a living relationship with the person of Jesus which transforms how we relate to others. When we concentrate solely on our sins rather than on the person who can free us from sinful behaviour we are on the road to destruction.
Lent calls us to be people who are transformed through our penance, fasting and almsgiving to view our world differently. This is out of a life-giving and sustaining relationship with the person of Christ. It allows us the opportunity to centre ourselves on a relationship which sustains all other relationships. It calls us to seek out ways in which we can sustain that relationship and also the times when we can be subsumed by our own fears that we do not deserve it. In seeking the way ahead we are called to be open to entering more deeply into that relationship with others by becoming that God desires us to be. To be free of the things that bind us and addict us to forms of behaviour which prevent us from allowing our whole life being founded on the person of Christ.
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