In 1922, Marjorie Williams published a children’s book titled "The Velveteen Rabbit". This beloved story is still being read today because it offers a powerful image that reveals the purpose and meaning of life.

I believe that that image can be useful for us in interpreting this weekend’s gospel. The story is simple: One Christmas, a young boy receives a stuffed velveteen rabbit. When the Rabbit enters the nursery, other toys flaunt their superiority over him. They say, "We are real toys because we have gears, switches, and whistles. You are just a stuffed rabbit — you’re not a real toy."

This, of course, disheartens the Rabbit, so he sought the wisdom of the Skin Horse, who has been in the nursery for a very long time.

“What does it mean to be REAL?” the Rabbit asks. “Does it mean that you have to have gears inside of you and switches to flip?”

It is in the response of the Skin Horse that the author sets forth as the basic message of her book.

“Real isn’t how you’re made. It’s something that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time — not just to play with, but REALLY loves you — then you become REAL.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, who was always honest. “When you are real, however, you don’t mind being hurt.”

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up?" the Rabbit asked.

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. These things don’t matter at all, because once you are real you can never be ugly — except to the people who don’t understand.”

This beautiful image offers four insights which are relevant to our lives today.

• The purpose of life is to become real, to understand what is important, to grow in wisdom, and to live in the love of God and the love of others.
• Becoming real is a gradual process. It does not happen all at once. It unfolds, bit by bit, year by year.
• The journey to becoming real sometimes hurts. It involves pain, rejection, and sometimes failure. Growing is not easy.
• Once you become real, nothing else matters. You have become what you are meant to be.

The season of Lent offers us another opportunity to become real — to center on what is most important and to again claim the truth that we are called to live in the love of God and the love of others.

— Father Mark