SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai
The most solemn choice one can ever make is oneself. When you choose yourself in an authentic manner, you would have chosen God and all that is godly. When you choose yourself authentically, you will begin to see the world and everyone in it the way they really are. You will see through all masks and shadows, including your previous masks and shadows. You will discover how naked each person is. You will see your own nakedness for what it really is.
Choosing yourself does not mean that you end up wearing clothes of deception. It simply means that you learn to become comfortable in your nakedness. In choosing yourself, you ask God to remove the clothes made of fig leaves that God once used to cover fallen humanity.
In choosing yourself, you learn to become like Jesus Christ. The one who was stripped naked on the cross. Only in your nakedness can you follow Jesus. Only in your nakedness can you experience the resurrection. The gift of the resurrection is itself a turn to the world of being naked. But nakedness comes with its own anxieties. Yet, such anxieties only help you to become comfortable with what you are meant to be – a resurrected being.
Lent is all about being naked. It is a time for letting go. It is a time of choosing oneself in an authentic manner. It is a time of deep introspection. It is a time of seeing how being yourself allows God to connect you with everyone. This connection never leads to abandoning yourself. Only in choosing yourself can you resurrect, and only through your resurrection can you become the icon of life for others in their own resurrection journeys.
Choose yourself and learn to look inwards. Block all the distractions. Learn to let go so that your Lent will help you to experience the gift of resurrection.
During this season, I ask that you join me in praying for a ceasefire in the current Ukraine- Russian war and the Israeli-Hamas war. Too many innocent people have lost their lives. May the waring parties choose peace which is the pathway of embracing their own dignities. Amen. Enjoy!
Simon Aihiokhai Blogs 
This is a moving invitation to a spiritual nakedness that redeems the fig-leaf shame of our first parents by involving us in the willed nakedness of Christ’s self-offering on the Cross. Thank you, Simon.