Lent

On Fridays I do homeroom with my students and I brought up the question of Lent and what it is for. We talked for a while and I asked, "So during Lent are we really making ourselves more holy for God?"
"Yeah," they answered.  Like, duh.
I explained to them the gist of this quote.  I think they thought I was being weird.
I love the gospel.
 

The holiness into which you seek to grow has already been given to you, whole and entire! It’s yours in Jesus Christ, the gift of His righteousness  fully bequeathed you in Baptism, and constantly renewed in you by absolution and the Holy Eucharist. Through these wonderful gifts, we get to GROW  in the apprehension of that which is already our own, learning to live more and more from it, more and more from union with Christ and less and less  from the old self. So it is not that holiness grows in you; it is that you grow in holiness! Getting used to whom God has made you to be in His Son.   There’s real effort here, of course, but the effort is working at resting in Him who works all things through us. I don’t overcome sin by my willpower (ha!),  but by the strength of Him who has united Himself to me.

I read this quote here and it is attributed to Pastor Will Weedon.