The Rev. Gordon DeLaVars, rector St. Paul's, Mayville

When I was a boy attending parochial school, I had a bad case of what are popularly called the "scruples." For a time I lived in almost constant fear that I was doing the wrong thing and that God would punish me for my sins. Not surprisingly, I very much dreaded the season of Lent, with its emphasis on repentance and self-discipline.

The liturgies of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday seemed only to underscore my unworthiness and my participation in the sufferings of Christ. I can still recall the opening words from the Stations of the Cross written by Alphonsus Liguori: "It was not Pilate, no, it was my sins that condemned thee to die."

As I came to appreciate more and more God's mercy and love, I outgrew the scruples. But I think it took me a longer time to outgrow the idea of Lent as anything but a period of unrelieved emotional darkness. And I think that many people have felt the same way. Yet that idea misses entirely the point and purpose of the season, which is that of making a new beginning, of getting ourselves right with God. It overlooks the fact that the heart of our Lenten journey is joy, not sorrow—joy at being able to respond to the Church's call to repentance and renewal, joy at the chance of being reconciled with God, with one another and with ourselves. This is the moment that we've been waiting for, the moment that cannot be put off any longer. "See, now is the acceptable time," Paul writes to the church in Corinth; "See, now is the day of salvation!"

so there is more gladness than gloom in Lent. Still, making a new beginning, getting right with God, does require that we make some significant changes. And these involve more than just a change of diet. Yet how ironic (and revealing) it is that we still speak of our Lenten discipline in terms of "giving up" something like a special food or dessert, when what we're probably being called to give up is something far more spiritually weighty, and far more difficult to part with.

God may be calling us to give up our unjust anger and impatience with others. God may be asking us to surrender some of our cynicism or give up our cold detachment in the face of injustice and human suffering. Refraining from candy or caffeine is easy when compared to these alternatives, easy when compared to changing the direction of our hearts.

All of this brings us to the subject of forgiveness, a very complex virtue, and perhaps the single most difficult action we're expected to perform as Christians. for God may be calling us in this "acceptable time" to reflect on how we have or have not exercised this virtue. Each of us has our own history regarding forgiveness, our own memories, pleasing or painful. And each of us knows the kinds of stumbling blocks faced both by those who seek forgiveness and those who are moved to grant it. Yet God may be inviting us to hearken again to the ancient call for reconciliation and to perceive again the presence of grace by which we can begin to accomplish this ministry in our homes and workplaces, among friends and enemies.

I invite you to ponder forgiveness and that ways that it has touched your life. I encourage you, this Lent to read about forgiveness in both scripture and elsewhere and to allow the Holy Spirit to guide you to a deeper awareness of God's own mercy towards all people and how we ourselves can forgive because we have been forgiven.

May you enjoy a holy, renewing and fruitful Lent!