What is Lent?

From Fr. Blake:

Lent is not an orgy of Pelagian self improvement, that turns it into something vain and worldly. Lent is about probing our weakness and offering that to God. "Remember you are dust and to dust we shall return", are words that should dominate our Lent. God takes dust, breathes his life into us and we become human beings, without him we return to dust. Our existence depends on Him, by ourselves we are nothing, blown away like dust in the breeze.

Lent is the time when we are supposed to realise without God we are nothing, and God is everything. That for us Catholics it is the sacraments; Baptism, the Eucharist, Penance, those direct contacts with God himself that give us Life.

Realising we are weak and God is strong, that we cannot depend on ourselves but only on Him, if we are confronted with that, then Lent will have some value for us. If we learn to weep over our sins and to run to him in the sacraments not just for his forgiveness but for his strength then Lent will not be wasted.