Lent, in short, is about coming to life in new ways. It is about growth. Lasse Halstrom's film Chocolat, up for five Academy Award nominations, provides a wonderful cinematic metaphor for the season and for Eucharistic community. A single mother and her daughter come to a small village in France and open a chocolate shop. The chocolate, produced from pure ground cocoa mixed with red chili pepper powder, mysteriously releases the deepest yearnings and reveals the destiny of those who eat it.
People come alive in relationship in new ways.
The Spirit is always anonymously at work in every human life, within me, within you, drawing our attention to this, to that, opening our eyes, making us aware, awakening all that is truly human in us, all that is most real. How appropriate that Chocolat should begin with Lent and end with Easter Sunday, for Lent is the season par excellance in which the Giver of Life strives within our dull, frightened little spirits to bring us more fully alive. Those are but hints of a more permanent aliveness towards which the Holy Spirit is constantly nudging us. The essential gift the Lord and Giver of Life wants to give us is aliveness - coming alive towards other people, coming alive to the glory and tragedy of this world, coming alive to the reality of ourselves, coming alive to our responsibility in society, local and worldwide, coming alive to the Scriptures and the life of prayer, alive to the presence of Jesus Christ and the deep, energizing joy of God. The figure of Jesus emerges in all the Gospels as one who was supremely responsive and aware.