As the Lenten season 2025 comes to a close

Welcome to the end of yet another Lenten season. This is the end of the forty days of cleansing, rejuvenation, introspection, renewal, much praying, fasting, and charity. It’s the period all Christians are admonished to look out for the less privileged, their neighbours, family, and friends.

It is a time to share, to be kinder, to be more patient, and to give one’s time to an activity that needs more hands and more help. This season is when you give your time to a school for the physically challenged, when you visit an orphanage, and when you put that girl selling oranges by the roadside in school.

“Our prayer is to stay determined to step up our prayer life and deepen our charitable life and be better versions of ourselves.”

Lent is supposed to make one more charitable, less ostentatious, more Spartan, less greedy, and more kind. It is also hoped that most of the new charitable ways and other related kindnesses are retained or at least maintained after the Lenten season.

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We are also expected to have given up something during this period. Something one considers has a stranglehold on one’s life—e.g., smoking, drinking, a food item that seems like an addiction, avarice, stealing, or even gossip.

I typically gave up ice cream. I am truly helpless with that food item in my life. I stopped at shops in London in the winter to get a decadent version of the most delicious ice cream on my way out and on my way home. And I mean daily for at least three months. I knew it had become an addiction. So Lent after Lent, I gave up ice cream.

And guess what? After about three years of doing this, I don’t miss it anymore. Every Lent when I give up ice cream, ice cream diminishes from my sight. Now I have it only when friends are having it.

The discipline of giving something up that needs to be given up and totally distancing oneself from it eventually is the beauty of Lent—be it theft, lies, a certain type of food, or gossip.

Now that Easter beckons, we look back at the Lenten period and ask ourselves if we did enough. We also hope to maintain our Spartan nature and our charitable nature. Our prayer is to stay determined to step up our prayer life and deepen our charitable life and be better versions of ourselves.

The Christian follows a 40-day fast but also sobers up to the fact that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and rose again on the third day. The humbling season of Lent is served up as a lesson for rejuvenation and introspection. Above all, Easter is a reminder that we should be above board at all times, remembering the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus made for us. To return to our past sins and our past ways would be a betrayal of that ultimate sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us.

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From Holy Thursday through to Easter Monday is a culmination of the Lenten journey and a celebration of a risen Christ.

We look back and take stock. How did we do this Lenten season 2025? Can we do better? Must we wait until next year’s Lent? Can we sustain the sacrifice we undertook this season?

Let us be mindful that our Muslim brothers and sisters just concluded Ramadan, a similar period of fasting, prayer, and charity.

I pray that as we enter the Easter celebrations, our families and the nation benefit from this season of rebirth…. Amen.

May we all behave better, sacrifice more, be more generous, and be more charitable. Like my mother would say, we can only sleep on one bed and in one room. We can not drive eleven cars or eat more than one plate of food. Therefore, looking out for the less privileged should be a continuous exercise. We have too many clothes we don’t wear, and you really do not need more than two cars at the most and one at the least. That extra car can build a hospital, build a school, and pay school fees for those who can not afford it. Let us be more circumspect, more giving, and more generous.

Happy Easter! May all our prayers rise up to God, and may our nation know peace…Amen.