It has begun! Lent is here. It's one of my favorite liturgical seasons of the entire year. The forty days mimic the time Jesus spent in the desert before beginning his public ministry. In the coldness and desolation of the desert, Jesus stripes himself of the distractions of comforts of daily life and returns to the core, the heart, the beating source of what makes life worthwhile. In Lent, we return to God. We scrape ourselves free from the barnacles clinging to our Christian souls. In Lent, we become "saints in training".