catherine doherty on self-image and lent

this is too wonderful not to share in a thread all by itself - it ties in quite nicely the start of Lent along with our thoughts from this past weekend on vanity:

Now is the time to drop all desire for approval, by our peers or by our seniors or by our juniors, because the God we follow had no approval. There he is, crucified. This is the consequence of the disapproval of man! That's what man did to his God. Are we going to repeat this crucifixion by our picayune little worries about being approved by somebody? This is the moment to drop such things. Who wants to be approved? The ones who do not want to follow Christ. The ones who want to sit in corners and hug themselves with the approval of some unimportant people.

This is the hour of renewal. Lent is renewal and repentance. Lent is a time of change. Is it the time to have a wrong image of yourself? You are the image of God and if you have a poor image of yourself, then you are desecrating his image. That's not how one wants to enter Lent. (emphasis added.)

amen and amen.