The Sunday of Zacchaeus rings like a bell in the distance to alert us that Great Lent is approaching. Starting this Sunday we are to start preparing, to ready ourselves, to start pondering the coming of Great Lent. Great Lent is a time of purification, of earnest work, the kind that allows Christ to perform His work in us. Great Lent is to be taken seriously; each person according to his ability is expected to take on the disciplines of Lent so that the interior cleansing we undertake can be met with a greater revelation of Christ to us at the time of His choosing. Before we receive an important guest in our home, we clean our house. Before we give him a ride in our car, we clean the car. So it is with our interior lives. In order to meet Christ and share our life with His, we first have to do some interior house cleaning. Great Lent offers us the means to do that. We worship more, we pray more, we discipline our bodies more — we make a greater effort to conform our lives to Him in ways that can deepen our communion with Christ and our experience of Him. Start preparing now by thinking about Great Lent. Then when it comes you will be ready for it.