It’s always amazing what you find when you decide to clean a room in your house. By clean, I don’t mean just dust and vacuum, but pull everything out and wonder, “What is this? Why am I keeping it?” Sometimes, we keep items for sentimental reasons; other times because we’ve forgotten they were even there.
Christmas was over a long time ago, of course – well, really only six weeks ago, but it is now out of our minds as we consider what comes next. There must be a reason that Lent begins not so far after Christmas. More than just the accident of the early Church appropriating an old pagan holiday.
After we’ve had the indulgent pleasures of Christmas, comes the sobering reality of Lent, due to start just ten days from today. Prior to Lent, however, many celebrate a festival called Carnival, from the Latin carne, meat and val, leaving. Perhaps the best way to celebrate this time and the Lente to come, is by making sure that others have enough to eat.
Prayer for the Day
Although after Christmas, when we think of winter, ice, and snow,
The weather almost beckons us into planning for spring,
We consider the season that will be upon us and start to prepare,
Even though we do not really want Lent to come so quickly.
Hold us in your heart, O God, so we not only plan ahead,
But live today sharing your Word through our actions.
In the name of the One who fed thousands,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
There are people in this world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
- Mahatma Gandhi (1969-1948)
If I am hungry, that is a material problem; if someone else is hungry, that’s a spiritual problem.
- Paul Farmer, physician, Partners in Health (1959-2022)
If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
Then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your gloom be like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places,
And make your bones strong; and you will be like a watered garden,
Like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
Isaiah 58: 10-11