By Nader Nasralla, SJ
Recently, a Jesuit companion confided in me that he often feels we spend more energy talking about Lent than actually living the joy of Easter. We reflect at length on what we could change during this time and consider what resolutions to make. Yet, sometimes, we give less attention to the joy that follows.
Indeed, if the Church offers us 40 days of Lent to prepare for celebrating the Resurrection of Christ, it then gives us 50 days to live the Easter season as one great feast in the joy of the risen Lord. This proportion is not accidental: preparation is important, but celebration is even more so.
However, in our contemporary society, we invest enormous energy in preparing grand events, but once the event is over, everything quickly returns to the ordinary. The celebration then becomes a fleeting moment rather than a lasting state. Similarly, often just a few days after Easter Sunday, life seems to quickly return to its usual rhythm. We go back to our habits, sometimes hoping that next Lent we will, this time, commit ourselves more seriously and make a real change.
Yet the Church’s liturgy, with Lent and the Easter season, reminds us of a different logic: that of continuous conversion and a joy that is not limited to a single day, but unfolds and deepens in our daily lives.
So concretely, how are we called to live this time of Lent? Perhaps we are first invited to realize that it is not merely a time of preparation, like preparing for major events, but more profoundly a time of transformation, deepening and maturation in our relationship with the risen Lord. For it is by walking with him now that we learn to welcome his Resurrection in the depths of our lives.
It is no secret that when Lent begins, the lives of most of us do not change radically overnight. Certainly, a desire for change lives in our hearts, but deep transformation takes time. And perhaps that is good news. St. Ignatius of Loyola once said that God treated him “like a schoolmaster with a child.” According to him, God did not reveal everything at once, but step by step, adapting to his capacity to understand, just as a teacher patiently guides a student so as not to discourage them. Surely the same is true for us.
Perhaps, during this Lent, we are simply invited to pay renewed attention to the intention behind each of our actions. Why do we do what we do? What is the source of our words, our choices, our reactions? Little by little, we are given the chance to purify this intention, to transform it if necessary, in order to live our daily lives more in the way of Jesus. This is precisely how God works: patiently shaping the human heart.
We are invited to stop, to take the time to remain with the Lord, and to present him our joys, our questions, our vulnerabilities. Gradually, in this simple fidelity, our relationship with him becomes more alive, more rooted, more real. Over time, this will lead to a maturation that often shows itself in small things: greater patience with others, an increased ability to forgive, a more delicate attention to those who suffer, or a quieter constancy in prayer, even when we feel nothing in particular. These are the quiet but real signs of a heart that God is gradually shaping.
Ultimately, the goal of Lent is not only to reach Easter, but to gradually become people capable of living from the very life of the risen Lord. In this way, the joy of Easter becomes the joy of our everyday life — a lasting joy.
