The forty days of Lent commemorate the forty days Jesus prayed and fasted in the wilderness and was tested by Satan. Satan promised Jesus great riches, powers and glory if Jesus would worship him. Jesus said He would worship only God, and passed the test.
Choose this day whom you will serve - Judas in you or John the Beloved in you. Judas, divided in heart and mind chose death for himself and for Jesus. John the Beloved chose to serve his Lord into longevity years. Only through a constant heart and mind fixed on God and His Son can we of this world gain victory over the two selves in all of us.
Previous to Easter, Judas works for thirty days during the period called Lent. During this time, all persons are tried as to their betrayal inclinations, and their weaknesses are sifted.
Lent is an intense period of Marking and Tracing - preparing one to unite more fully with the Christ on Easter Morn.
In Marking and Tracing, one lays himself open first to his conscience and second to his Constant. Knowing oneself, knowing others, knowing what is happening and why it is happening - all are part of Marking and Tracing.
Lent is a 40-day confessional. We are on the desert with Jesus.
Every Sunday during Lent one may see an increase of desire to make union with God.
Penance during Lent is when you do without something connected within one’s sensual appetites or excessive action, or also when one Marks and Traces his thought patterns as to judgment and condemnation.
The Lenten Sacrament is the most important of the year.
***
Beloved, this morning and afternoon is a very sacred time because it is the beginning of our Lenten devotion and initiations; and also expanding the territories of our range of healing, that we might heal and bless all souls in this world. And in the community of God-sent ones who come into this world, we pray that we shall render service wherever we find ourselves, in whatever station, whatever point of light, whatever polarity, whatever situation.
We are speaking today especially on simplifying and glorifying, which is the spiritual life. There is no other way but to release, to drop, to make a leap, and to come out of the debris choking and stifling the spiritual life. This is a time now in which initiates in this world are greatly assisted by Omnipresence, that they may do their perfect work.
We are working now that we might send into the Earth the love and blessings, but especially with emphasis upon our own repentance of things which stand in the way of our walking in the Path. We must remember that this is the day of intense dedication, intense consecration, thereby receiving sanctification.
Today, we are uniting with the continents, the nations. We are blending with all religions. We are knowing there is no separateness unless we think it is so. We know there is a total love-body which watches over this Earth, and we are making union with it. We place our faults, our guilts, our sorrows, our unclarified griefs on the Altar of God as offerings to Him, that our ignorance may be dissipated, disintegrated and transenergized into spiritual power and light.
Let us realize today as we make the affirmations of repentance on this Altar that we are dropping the past, that it has no power over us unless we give it power, and that it can be disintegrated by light, by love; and that we can have the Guiding Principle to come into our lives to guide us. Let us pray for the Guiding Principle.
Our repentance today is the top-of-the-mountain experience. We have walked the pathways to the crest; we are looking on the overlook and seeing all of these things through which we have learned and stumbled. We all have been awkward disciples. None of us is absent from sin and error. We all have erred because we did not know. We have denied the Light because we wanted to dwell in our own light. We have found that our own light is certainly not happy, that it is bitter, and that it turns back on us and becomes our own enemy in times of wanting peace.
Today as we take the ashes and make our consecration, let us remember that repentance is a very deep, powerful word and that it is the first word you have offered to you as you enter the path.
Repent. Repent. Repent. This is why penance will be paid according to your Recording Angel - the finding how you will pay. Restitution will be made according to time and placement, according to your karmic destiny as well as according to your spiritual destiny. Thus, we are always in the state of restitution when we understand the True Law beyond regret. Regret is not repentance. Regret is still holding on to the karma in our thoughts, still being fascinated with why we did a particular thing. Now we are longing and yearning for the peace that comes from being unburdened. But we do not become unburdened, beloved ones, but to stand single and alone by ourselves and to lavish ourselves in sensuality. To be unburdened means that we must take up the burdens of others; we must help in this world; we must serve; we must heal; we must minister. We are asking to be ministers, not to be ministered to - this is the Ministry of Niscience.
