Friday after Ash Wednesday
Fasting as to make your voice heard on high
"Would that today you might fast so as to make your voice heard on high!”
Lent provides us with an opportunity every year to spend time in prayer, resolve to improve ourselves, and prepare to renew our own baptismal promises. This first Friday in Lent is a good time to evaluate our lives, and begin to make needed changes.
Fasting and abstinence are the outward signs of our Lenten journey, but this fasting is more than depriving ourselves as a penance for our sins. It should represent our relationship with God –striving to change our actions to bring us closer to God. We should fast with love as we wait for the Lord. Fasting in love means sharing bread with the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the oppressed, and being present to others in the community.
Now is the time, with God’s help, to make a change in our lives. Reach out to faculty, students, staff, and visitors to our campus, and truly communicate and care about their needs. Reach out to those who look troubled, and be truly attentive to their distress. Reach beyond your usual social circle and take the time to learn about and care for others, helping to ease their pain or smooth a rough road they may be traveling.
Let your sacrifice come from a contrite heart and full of compassion for others, and call upon the Lord to help you. Do not turn your back on those in need, and your own wounds will be healed. Then your light shall indeed break forth like the dawn.
Dr. Jill Nennmann
Office for Campus Ministry