Lent Guide 2023Sample

Thursday – Peace

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

John 20:19,22-23

I grow in freedom from resentment when I grow in peace. In his book, The Holy Longing, Ronald Rolheiser speaks about how we can make peace with life:

• Give your will and dreams and hope over to God.
• Name the things in your life that have come to an end.
• Wait in silence and expectation for God to do something new while you are grieving your loss.
• Notice the birth of a new life.
• Let go of what you have lost.
• Allow yourself to be blessed by the gifts of the past and adapt to the new reality.
• Receive the Spirit of God for the life you are living now: “Accept the Spirit for the life that you are, in fact, living.”

When I go through this cycle, I can be open to receive God’s spirit for the life that I am, in fact, living, not for the life I thought I wanted to live, or that I would have lived had my circumstances been different.

Grace:

Lord, give me the grace of freedom from resentment.