I. The Call to Study
Lent calls us to go back to our roots, to rediscover who we are as God’s people. We learn these things in God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures. Lent was originally a time for study and preparation, of catechesis, in preparation for Baptism. We are called to faithful study, and to take to heart the message of God’s saving grace. (Psalm 90:15-16)
II. The Call to Meditation
Lent calls us to enter the world within – the Kingdom of the Spirit. We enter that world in reflective meditation, waiting upon God to reveal Himself in the quiet places of our heart. (Psalm 130:5-8)
III. The Call to Prayer
Lent calls us to reconnect our life to God’s. In prayer, we speak to God and He speaks to us; prayer is nothing other than a child talking to a loving parent. (Romans 8:26-27)
IV. The Call to Fasting and Self-Denial
Lent calls us to deny ourselves. Fasting and self-denial remind us of our creaturely needs, and help us to discipline our appetites, to free us from those things we sometimes consider so necessary, that we might rediscover the “one thing necessary” – the call of God. (Matthew 10:37-39)
V. The Call to Simplicity
Lent calls us to avoid the complexity and materialism of modern life, that leads people away from the teachings of Christ and from a spiritually essential connection to God’s Earth. It reminds us to avoid the enslavement of materialism and the spiritual and literal waste it causes, to focus on both our interior and exterior life. (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11, Hebrews 13:5-6, Luke 12:15)
VI. The Call to Almsgiving
Lent calls us to focus on both our interior and exterior life. Faith means nothing, unless it is expressed in service to others. The discipline of Almsgiving – giving to the poor – reminds us that all we have belongs to God, and that He has a special concern for the poor and oppressed. (James 2:5, 14-17)
VII. The Call to Servanthood
Lent calls us to follow the way of the cross. The lenten disciplines help us to refocus our life along this way. Jesus is the perfect example of servanthood – the life lived for others. (John 13:3-15).
VIII. The Call to Sacrificial Love
Lent calls us to serve and benefit others in all that we do, having regard to nothing except the need and advantage of our neighbor. The cross sharpens our understanding as to how we may give oneself as a Christ to one’s neighbor, just as Christ offered Himself to us. (1 John 4:7-11).
— Rev Tan-Yeo Lay Suan