Don't Let the Lessons Learned from Lent Be Lost

Rachel Watkins shares what she learned during Lent, expressing her hopes to build on that spiritual momentum.

What I Learned from Lent 2025 

With Lent behind us and in the midst of the wonderful Easter season I have always thought it is important to take time to reflect on how my Lent went. I don’t want to dwell on my recent past in an obsessive way, such as what I didn’t do or days I messed up, but rather on what God did for me over the past 40 days or so.  

“My God will fully supply whatever you need, in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19)

This verse reassures me that throughout Lent within all that I did do, God gave me blessings and insights into His plan for me and my family.  It is important to recall what we did and take any lessons with us. After all, our hard work during Lent to go closer to God would be wasted if we just moved on as if we did nothing!  

How Was Your Lent? Did You Learn Anything New? 

In my family, we strive to think of any time spent with God as a time to learn something new and grow holier. It is much like every book we read, every practice we undertake for a sport or musical instrument. Why do we practice? Why do we read? To get better, to know more about the subject or endeavor. At the end of a practice or music lesson, a good teacher or coach might ask, “So, what did you learn? Anything new?”  

My Lent was a mixture of reading, prayer, Mass, and such like based on my schedule and my mood. Here are some insights: what affected me, what changed me, and what surprised me.  

He has created us with the dizzying freedom to enter more deeply into His love, or to deny it and ignore it. (Personal Prayer A Guide to Receiving God’s Love by Father Thomas Acklin, OSB and Father Boniface Hicks, OSB, p. 11)

Dizzying freedom! I can relate to that as I deal with young adult children whose own free will has created situations that call for deeper prayer from my husband and me. This freedom is a gift from God for our use and throughout Lent I was led to reflect more on how I use mine.  

Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, Deserving of Our Adoration 

I was changed by listening to a priest from YouTube who reflected on how we can approach Jesus in the elevation of His Body and Blood at Mass. The Church allows for either a prayerful bow of the head or a devotional raising of the head. In reflecting on my time as an in-the-weeds mom of 13, I can remember allowing myself to worry way too much about what other people were thinking of my large family and I didn't pay attention to what was happening on the altar. As a penance for my past behavior, I have reformed how I approach that moment. I’m striving to be a fully focused, heads-up Catholic rejoicing in that moment in the Mass when I can worship and adore Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity.  

Finally, I was surprised by the Adoration Vigil reflections from the Magnificat, pgs. 128-133. Sister Mary Frassati Jakupcak, OP, wrote about Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. As a not very successful but still trying gardener I was caught by surprise when she wrote,

Jesus loves us too much to allow us to cut ourselves off from him. Jesus goes to garden of Gethsemane as a sign that he is seeking out not just Adam and Eve but all of us.

He came into that garden to find us, to find me. His choice of a garden was not a coincidence due to its proximity, but a decision that deepens the lessons of His sacrifice. Gardens have deep meaning to God, and now for me.  

Just as Jesus’ 40 days in the desert prepared him for His mission, our Lent has the power to do the same for ours if we remember what we learned and let it change us.  

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Copyright 2025 Rachel Watkins
Images: Canva