The natural seasons of the year give a rhythm to life. Each season provides nature with something it needs to keep growing. The same thing happens in the Church, with liturgical seasons. In each liturgical season God sends us graces we need to keep growing in wisdom, holiness, and happiness. But these graces don’t benefit our souls automatically, the way sunlight benefits plants. Rather, we must take them in on purpose. But how? How can we bathe in the supernatural sunlight that will make us grow, make us better, make us change, during this liturgical season? Today the Church reminds us of the most effective method we have for drinking in all the graces God wants to give us during this Lent: prayer. Today’s First Reading tells us that “The Lord God took Abram outside…” and had a conversation with him. That’s prayer. The Psalm gives us an example of King David’s prayer in the face of danger, “Your presence, O Lord, I seek. Hide not your face from me…”St. Paul, in the Second Reading, reminds the Christians in Philippi that while most people occupy their minds “with earthy things… Our citizenship is in heaven.” Our attention is on God – that’s prayer. Finally, in the Gospel, Jesus leads his three closest disciples away from the hustle and bustle of life, up to the top of a high mountain, where he can be alone with them, and give them a lesson in prayer. We must ask ourselves: is our prayer life in good shape? Has it improved in the last year, the last ten years? If it’s out of shape, we won’t be able to drink in the graces God wants to give us this Lent, the ones we really need.