Prepared to Answer

One thing we can say for sure when Easter arrives: Lent is over.

A couple weeks ago, some people told me I looked thinner. I was like, “Ah–don’t think so. I’m the worst Lenten faster ever. If I look thinner, it’s just a fluke.”

To be honest, I flailed through Lent in a spiritual haze, holding on for dear life, wondering when the Lord would finally bring on spring. I’m sure all of you kept a holier Lent than that. Forty days more focused on prayer, sacrifice, and helping the poor.

Whatever the case, now it’s over. Lent is officially over. And the whole reason we keep Lent has arrived. All our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving serves to prepare us spiritually for the moment when the Church askes us a few simple questions.

Maybe some of us can remember when we were baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. Many of us cannot. That whole question is moot right now anyway. We have all grown up and can answer the questions for ourselves.

The moment has come for us to own our answers to these questions The answers are called our ‘baptimal promises.’ The moment has come to put everyting–heart, soul, mind, and strength–into our answers.

We do penance during Lent to prepare for this. We pray, we fast, we impose discipline, so that we can summon our whole selves and answer these questions with all the sincerity of which we are capable, the sincerity of God’s beloved children.

Do you renounce Satan?…