When I begin exercising, or before beginning a run, I spend five minutes warming up. I walk at a comfortable pace to "limber up" and to gradually increase my heart rate so I am ready for a work-out.
During this time I am thinking:
Am I ready for this?
Am I dreading the exertion, or am I eager?
Am I dressed appropriately for the weather?
Am I feeling any aches or pains?
Then I pick up the pace and I'm off.
We're now completing this first week of the Lenten season. For me, the past few days have been like a warm-up. I've been thinking:
Am I ready for this? Do I have a plan?
Am I dreading any sacrifices, or even complaining about
them? Or I am grateful and eager?
Have I put on the garments of faith, truth, readiness, and
righteousness? Do I take up the word of God and pray for
all kinds of requests? (cf. Ephesians 6: 10-19)
Am I experiencing spiritual aches and pains of sin that need
repentance?
Now is the time to pick up the pace.
I focus on the present moments of my Lenten work-out that are taking me, step by step, to the culmination of Easter when we celebrate the new risen life of Jesus that we share. Hopefully, through this Lenten journey I, together with my brothers and sisters in faith, are becoming spiritually fit and strong.
Lord Jesus, may we always follow you more and more closely.
Thank you for being The Way to our Father and to eternal life.
Jesus, I trust in you.
This is beautiful! Warming up and preparing ourselves is so important for most things that we do! I'm thinking about cooking, we make sure we have all the ingredients; going to bed or arising in the morning, we have a routine; driving a car, we check our surroundings and adjust the mirrors.
ReplyDeleteI made my plans for Lent, too. One of them was to improve the quality of my prayer time and after reading this post, I realize that part of accomplishing that is warming up before I start! I'm trying to remember to take a deep breath to quiet my thoughts and my soul before I begin. I like to start with prayers of Praise and Thanksgiving and then ask God to open my ears to hear what He wants to tell me, today.
I think that "cooling down" after an activity might be equally important. At the end of a long run, I bet you walk a bit. After cooking, we clean up the kitchen and after driving, we make sure car is parked safely, fully turned off and locked. So how do we "cool down" after praying? Perhaps it is to remember to say "Thank You" for all God's blessings and making a commitment to put into practice the Words He has given us? Perhaps "cooling down" from Lent entails "warming up" for Easter when we make what we have learned during Lent part of our everyday life?
To "cool down," I walk more slowly and think about the experience, and I feel really grateful that I am able to exercise. Maybe a prayer cool down would be resting in the Lord for a short time before resuming other activities. I like your idea about Lent being like a warm up for Easter, getting ourselves ready to celebrate the Resurrection.
ReplyDeleteI agree! Last week, I stopped by the church to walk the Stations of the Cross - by myself, as we are still avoiding gatherings of people, on the advice of our doctors. When I finished, I just wasn't ready to leave, so I prayed my rosary. I still didn't want to leave, as I felt so much at peace, so I stayed for a while just to sit in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Those moments are so precious. I'm hoping that when our time on earth is done, Heaven will be just like that - resting in the presence of Our Savior - without having to leave to pick up groceries!
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