On the third and last Sunday of Lenten preparation we are taught by
our Church that a spirit of Christian love is the true spirit in which
we should seek to spend this holy season. Only thus will Lent be
marked by all needful self-denials, an increase of devotion, and new activities
of Christian usefulness. Only thus will Lenten discipline be preserved
from the dangers of self-seeking and self-complacency.
We are apt to think of Lent as chill, cold, and unattractive, to enter
upon it without any special object, and to mark it only by increased formalities.
Our Church teaches that it should rather be a season into which love should
be the entrance, of which love should be the spirit, and in which the increase
of love should be our great object.
If we act successfully upon the teachings of our Church the season will
be one even of happiness to ourselves, and, through us, to others. Our
acts of self-denial will be willing offerings. Our devotion will
issue in increased joy. Our more intense activity will issue
permanently in an after-life of increased usefulness. Thus will the
season be one which God shall most certainly bless, being Himself the God
of Love, for the object of Lent is the object of life, even so to possess
and be possessed by love as to be fitted for a share in the glorification
of love when God shall be all and in all.
