Recently, a blog posting contained this lyric from Leonard Cohen’s song, “Anthem”….
“Everything has a crack in it. That’s how the light gets in.”
This captures the purpose and spirit of Lent. The purpose of a penitential season is not to embarrass us or, much less, to shame us. God takes no delight in “guilt trips”—which usually don’t produce much except more guilt.
The purpose of a penitential season is to allow the Holy Spirit to take us to the “cracks” in our lives—where very often, the Light gets in.
This means that the spirit of Lent is always redemptive. But like a good surgeon, God sometimes has to cut in order to cure. We don’t submit to surgery in order to be wounded, we submit to it in order to be healed.
“Everything has a crack in it. That’s how the light gets in.” Indeed.
Oboedire 