Hot on the heels of a weekend in Vegas comes the holy season of Lent – now there are two exact opposites for you. One is all about humility and introspection, hopefully with a little self-denial tossed in for good measure. The other? Well, let’s just say that self-denial and humility are not exactly traits associated with a place commonly referred to as “Sin City”.

Lent is an important time of the year for Christians, because it provides the opportunity for a sort of annual self-check of one’s own spiritual and physical life – not just now, but in comparison to years past. Biblically, we are called to imitate and contemplate on the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness before he emerges to the life and ministry that will ultimately lead him to death on the Cross.

The purpose of Lent is to be a season of fasting, self-denial, spiritual growth, conversion, and simplicity. Lent, which comes from the Teutonic (Germanic) word for springtime, can be viewed as a spiritual spring cleaning: a time for taking spiritual inventory and then cleaning out those things which hinder our corporate and personal relationships with Jesus Christ and our service to him. Thus it is fitting that the season of Lent begin with a symbol of repentance: placing ashes mixed with oil on one’s head or forehead. However, we must remember that our Lenten disciplines are supposed to ultimately transform our entire person: body, soul, and spirit, and help us become more like Christ. Eastern Christians call this process theosis, which St. Athanasius describes as “becoming by grace what God is by nature.”

Deacon Keith Fournier at Catholic Online has a nice homily on this Lenten season – one made even more poignant by the recent announcement by Pope Benedict XVI that he plans on stepping down as Pope at the end of the month:

Here are the Holy Father’s words for us this Lent about faith and charity:

“The relationship between these two virtues resembles that between the two fundamental sacraments of the Church: Baptism and Eucharist. Baptism (sacramentum fidei) precedes the Eucharist (sacramentum caritatis), but is ordered to it, the Eucharist being the fullness of the Christian journey. In a similar way, faith precedes charity, but faith is genuine only if crowned by charity. Everything begins from the humble acceptance of faith (“knowing that one is loved by God”), but has to arrive at the truth of charity (“knowing how to love God and neighbor”), which remains for ever, as the fulfillment of all the virtues (cf. 1 Cor 13:13).

“Dear brothers and sisters, in this season of Lent, as we prepare to celebrate the event of the Cross and Resurrection – in which the love of God redeemed the world and shone its light upon history – I express my wish that all of you may spend this precious time rekindling your faith in Jesus Christ, so as to enter with him into the dynamic of love for the Father and for every brother and sister that we encounter in our lives. For this intention, I raise my prayer to God, and I invoke the Lord’s blessing upon each individual and upon every community!”

If there is one lesson this world could stand to hear a little more of it is the humble words of a gracious man who sees in his own increasing age and frailty the need for more humility and less power in exchange for greater anonymity and less title. Of course, there are many (and their numbers are increasing) who will turn a deaf ear to such a simple and powerful message – after all, self-gratification and self-aggrandizment have become a virtual way of life in our increasingly coarse and sick culture. The Church is not immune to these powerful temptations, of course, and one doesn’t have to look far to see how much of the wounds afflicting today’s Christian Churches are self-inflicted.

Still, this world needs Christianity more than ever, and the lessons of Lent – self-examination of where one’s spiritual journey (or lack thereof) has taken us, self-denial, and a call to individual holiness – are lessons even the most hardened agnostic would have a hard time admitting aren’t a little bit in short supply these days. We live in a culture and world gone absolutely mad; we are Rome and the end times are near – the only question is who the Visigoths and Ostrogoths will be that take us down. It’s in times like this that the gentleness, humility, and holiness of Lent and its call to us listen to and for the better angels of our nature is needed most of all.