Lent 2025 – Sharing Hope

The hopeful and demanding season of Lent begins this week with Ash Wednesday on March 5. During this Jubilee Year, our One in Christ ACC is adopting the theme of “Sharing Hope.”

The phrase is intentionally open to more than one meaning. We share hope because we are part of the one Body of Christ, all striving together though in our own ways to grow closer to Jesus. The hope of God’s presence, mercy, and grace are our common heritage from the past and promise for the future. We share, together, the one Hope.

Yet we are also called to share that hope actively with others through our prayer, our service, the sacrifices we make and the kindnesses that we show. For those

whose circumstances and struggles overwhelm them, we are called by Jesus to share hope.

Each Ash Wednesday we listen to the same Gospel from Matthew, where Jesus commends to us anew the three classic and interconnected penitential disciplines: to pray, to fast, and to give alms. Of these three, fasting is often the “stretch goal” that requires regular attention and the deepest change of routine and habit. Most of us are used to living among abundance of material blessings and the ready availability of whatever we want for ourselves. Intentionally saying “No” to things that are in themselves good has at least three purposes.

First, like the triple physical fitness goals of strength, flexibility, and endurance, fasting can exercise our will to make the engagement of our personal freedom stronger, more flexible, and more durable. Rather than simply taking the path of least resistance and solidifying habits that may hinder our personal growth, we actively and thoughtfully choose, mindful that our choices are there because of God’s overflowing goodness and gifts.

Second, fasting can make us ware of those who are not blessed as we are – those who live in daily want, with no assurance of even their next meal or a safe place to sleep. Doing without by choice helps grow our compassionate response to those who do without because they have no other choice.

Third, fasting frees up resources in our lives – less spending on material things, more time to pray and learn and serve, greater bandwidth in our interests and relationships.

This last area makes more sense when we think more broadly about what we choose to fast from. We need it to live, but what is intended to be our servant can with time become our master. We think “I can always give that up or change that habit” – until we really try. Then we see what a hold our habits have on us.

There will always be growth in denying our bodily appetite for food. We need it to sustain health and life, so disciplining ourselves to use it wisely and well is itself an exercise of stewardship.

But food may not be the element in our lives that has the strongest grip that holds us back. Consider other forms of fasting – from your smartphone; from gossip; from negative judgments and complaints; from doomscrolling; from the impulsive purchases when we already have enough; from the voices that you know will stir up your suspicions and resentments; from whatever keeps you bound and does not allow the voice of Hope to be heard.

Jesus brings us hope – open your life to the share he desires to give you this Lent.