The Last Lent
What if this were your final Lenten season?
Yesterday, I started bleeding from a place that no woman my age should bleed from.
It caught me by surprise and made me hyper-aware of my own mortality—just in time for Lent, it seems.
I can tell the Holy Spirit is using this (again!) as a teaching moment. This morning at church, in the quiet time after Liturgy of the Hours (LOTH) and before Mass, He asked me, “What would you do if you knew this were your last Lenten season?”
My answer: “I would try to really make it count.”
Now, I don’t want to be overly theatrical or dramatic here. This bleeding may be something serious, or it may just be a fluke of nature. But that’s not the point.
Somehow, most of us behave as if we’re going to live forever.
The point is that really none of us knows when our time will be up. We could die at a moment’s notice… like my perfectly healthy uncle who, at 50 years of age, dropped dead from a brain aneurysm while tinkering with his car in the driveway.
Or my best friend, who passed away at 48. Aggressive lung cancer, six months from diagnosis to death.
That could be you or I. But somehow, most of us behave as if we’re going to live forever. It’s the equivalent of holding our hands over our ears and going, “Lalalalalalala…”
How many times have you experienced something for the last time, without knowing it was the last time?
How many hours of our life do we waste on unproductive, meaningless activities just to “pass the time”?
How often do we deal with loved ones on autopilot or do our daily chores listlessly, going through the motions?
How often do we resist the call of the Holy Spirit because it’s too inconvenient to obey—saying, “I’ll do it tomorrow”?
And how many times have we experienced something for the last time, without knowing it was the last time?
The last time you hung out with that childhood friend who moved away a short time later… the last time your mother kissed you goodnight… the last time you went to that idyllic vacation spot before it was overrun by tourists… the last time you saw your grandfather alive.
Had you known it was the last time, wouldn’t you have been so much more aware and in the moment, trying to squeeze every last ounce of sweetness out of it?
What if I knew that this were my last Lent?
I would stop whining about my self-imposed Lent sacrifices and would savor every moment of this special time of the year.
I would make sure I’d pray that daily Rosary and the LOTH Morning and Evening Prayers—every single day, no exceptions, no excuses.
I would love Jesus and VatiGod and all the people around me with a fierceness like never before. I’d do my best to think, speak, and act in a way that gives glory to God.
I would curb social media and other pointless distractions and spend more time working on my book projects instead.
I would drop all sense of entitlement, indignation, outrage, self-righteousness, pride, and holding onto “stuff”—because what’s the point if it all goes away soon anyway?
I would take long walks in nature and enjoy every minute I had left on this beautiful Earth.
And I would be absolutely fearless.
So what’s keeping me from doing this now?
What’s keeping you?