A prayer for Lent...

Merciful God, this week we prepare to embrace the season of Lent.  We prepare ourselves to walk with Jesus to the cross.  Speak to us, we pray, the truth of Christ's passion.  Remind us that there is no life without death, no communion without separation, no glory without suffering.  Give us courage and faith to receive these difficult truths and to align our hearts and lives with them.  May we choose to lose our lives so that we may gain them; to endure the pain of separation that we might enjoy the fellowship of all your saints; to enter Christ's suffereing by entering the suffering of your children on earth that we may one day share in your etermal glory.  For the sake of Christ, we pray.  Amen