Lenten Spring Training

If you are a baseball fan or if you have played baseball you probably know what spring training means. Spring training is used by baseball teams for conditioning, practice, and exhibition games. In short, baseball players work hard at getting ready to play the game.

For Christian disciples Lent is our time for spring training. It is a time for intensified attention to the Lenten spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, alms-giving, Bible reading and worship.

Lent 2012 begins on February 22 and continues for the next 40 days. Why 40 days? The number 40 is significant because it is meant to resemble the time Jesus spent in the wilderness as he prepared to begin his ministry to the world. Sundays are exclud-ed from the count of 40 because they are to be days of rest and celebration

If baseball players skipped spring training and showed up for the first game of the season ready to play ball, they would be sorely disappointed in their performance. And so it is with Christian disciples. If we show up at Easter ready to celebrate the resur-rection without having focused on our spiritual life, we miss the real joy of the resurrection. Are your ready for training?

This year Christian disciples at St. John are called to commit themselves to Spring Training by daily ob-serving the spiritual disciplines for the season of Lent.