"we are going to see how God loved us"

 "Preparation for Lent begins with desire. We exist to desire God. As Saint Augustine says, "My heart is restless until it rests in thee." In this is the preparation for Lent: touching a desire for God that is deep down in the heart. Desire is like a flame, it starts small and it grows. Lent should fan our desire for God into a bonfire....Each one of us can enter into his own heart and look for that desire for God. It might be a little flame barely visible, or it might already be a bonfire in us. Be that as it may, we are going to see how God loved us. This is what Lent is all about. Like Zacchaeus we are going to climb a big tree of faith so as to watch that no word of those last weeks of Christ's life passes in one ear and out the other. His every act, his every word, must be enclosed in our desire, for if we are to fulfill our desire to see him when the door of death opens (and even before, for the kingdom of God begins now) we have to imitate him whom we are going to look at. This will require that we empty ourselves of many things, since the kind of fiery desire we must have takes a lot of space. It is not just a little kindling that we are going to ignite, but huge dry wood. We must desire to empty every corner of ourselves of everything but this person called Jesus Christ, God and man, who died and rose so that we might see the face of his Father and meet the Triune God, the goal of all who have been born.

How does one get this great desire? The answer is always the same: prayer, fasting, and mortification. But prayer can be very simple. God, I believe; help my unbelief. In that prayer God will send faith, and faith is the match that kindles desire....[We] begin fasting not only from food, but from whatever leads us to run away from the new life God offers. It is in his strength, and his strength alone, that we are going to make this forthcoming Lent a time of deep and thorough cleansing. It is in him and through him that we will put our house in order so that we might go forth from it to put his order into the world. Above all, we must be open to the gifts of God, to the charity, the love with which the Father loves each of us."

                                                                   -  Catherine de Hueck Doherty