Fri Feb 10 2012
by the Rev. Brian S. Suntken, Christ Episcopal Church, Hudson
In the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, one will read, “Create and make in us new and contrite hearts.” This ringing phrase of the Collect for Ash Wednesday captures the essence of the Lenten season. Echoing Psalm 51, it prays for God to create anew in every person the individual God means for each of us to be.
That is Lent’s central purpose. It is a time of spiritual discipline in which we invite God’s grace to act in our lives so that we may become ourselves — more truly and wholly ourselves in God’s love and service.
As a child, my family had a summer home in the Pocono Mountains. A neighbor of ours had an old wooden boat. Each year it needed sanding, caulking and varnishing. Hard work, as I recall, but it paid worthy dividends as the boat stayed dry on fishing trips I remember and the lovely old wood mellowed in tone.
Our souls — our inner selves — are like a wooden boat in some ways. They need sanding and renewing and polishing year after year. Indeed the word “contrite” comes from the Latin root “to rub or grind,” implying that we may become more true and lovely in the process.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote, “Everyone forges his inner self year after year. One must … polish one’s soul so as to become a human being.” Lent is a time for letting God help you forge and polish your soul. So that, when Easter comes, the Christian may be raised with Christ to new life and prepared to celebrate with joy the good news of resurrection.
I encourage those who claim the calling of Christ to decide what your Lenten self-discipline is to be. Write it down and place it in your Bible or Prayer Book along with Psalm 51.
Humanize us, O God. Shape and polish us that we may be the persons you mean for us to be.
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