Lent has begun, and we need to live in this dark place between the ashes and the bread and wine, between the declaration of our mortality and the declaration of Christ’s redeeming work.

Lent is a time to reckon with the reality of the darkness. We do so with hope, because the season ends in Easter, in resurrection, in new life. But we can be raised to new life only if we have first died to the old one.

That is the challenge and the gift of Lent.

quoted in Christian Century