A Lent Full of Possibilities

There is one other thing I want to add about Lent. I spent the last post talking a lot about sacrifice (“sacrifice” - what are donuts, after all?) and prayer, but not much about service or alms-giving which are equally pillars of this penitential season.

On Ash Wednesday, Bishop Barron wrote:

The three great practices of Lent—prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—are three things you do. This is going to sound a little bit strange, but my recommendation for this Lent is, in a certain way, to forget about your spiritual life—by which I mean forget about looking inside at how you’re progressing spiritually. Follow the Church’s recommendations and do three things: pray, fast, and give alms. And as you do, pray to draw closer to the Lord as the center of your life—and the reason you do everything.

Last night I came across an article in evangelical magazine, Relevant, called Inside India’s Brick Kilns: Meet the Catholic Sisters Serving Kids.

I will save my thoughts on the absolute witness of these women to, as the author notes, simply be with these poverty-stricken children and families. I don’t think anything I say could do that reality justice, anyway.

I raise the article for two reasons: one is that I often run across organizations doing great work and think “people really ought to support that.” This leads me to my first thought: I interpret this as an invitation to me to notice that particular thought during Lent and actually be the one to give. Even just $10. Why not? That’s almsgiving, to me. Charitable giving need not be done in huge, pre-planned chunks. Respond to the call when you hear it, even if in just a small way.

Secondly, service. Bishop Barron does not cite service as a pillar of Lent, but I am claiming it here. What is faith without works? But more importantly, as he points out, Lent can become such an inward-looking experience, a “have I become holy yet?” quest. I may forget about serving others around me. And service can be its own experience of penance and mortification and therefore an opportunity for growth. So, you may not be called to serve the poorest of India, but you may be called to visit the elderly or disabled near your office; to arrange flowers for your church’s altar; to write a letter to someone in prison; to shovel the snow off your neighbor’s driveway; to mentor and hold the hand of a child without parents. That, to me, seems like a Lent full of possibilities.

p.s. I want to hear how your Lent is going. Are you doing the Stations of the Cross every Friday? Are you fasting, and if so, how and from what? Are you dragging yourself reluctantly to confession and considering it a victory? Let me know in the comments, girlfriend!

p.p.s. My workshop on growing in self-awareness is tomorrow!

Rethinking Lent This Year (Again)

Last year I wrote an article called Rethinking Lent This Year. I was inspired by the fact that I realized my own sacrifices were on autopilot and I didn’t even know why I was giving up what I was giving up. More importantly, could I add something? The thought of it all!

Anyway, I polled a bunch of people via email and got some great responses. Please read if you are rethinking your Lent; have fallen off the band wagon already; are feeling competitive with yourself or others (just kidding - don’t do that - it’s very much opposite the spirit of Lent); or want to learn something new. I know I did as I wrote it.

For example, one thing I come back to again this year is the decision to enjoy the thing on Sunday which one has given up. Obvious examples: chocolate, beer, wine, donuts, Netflix. As someone explained it to me, there are a few reasons for this. One is that it keeps you humbled. If you think you are just a’cruisin’ to Lent giving up this and that of your own power, to have it reintroduced - and then removed again the following day - can show you how dependent on God you are, actually. And yes, it takes God’s grace to keep me from snorfling seven handfuls of chocolate almonds from my desk drawer each day.

I think there’s another layer of humility, too, which is that if you are giving up all these fatty things you may end up feeling both svelte and smug. That’s not the point of Lent! Stop it! Go eat a donut and remember your sins.

Okay, so you’re probably wondering what I’ve given up. Last year I decided not to really give up anything because I had not been partaking of much alcohol or sweets, anyway. I prayed over some particular intentions, and I also wrote letters to friends with a bit of scripture that fit the season and in which I found a lot of meaning. That was Sirach 35:1-11. I was thinking a lot about relationships. It was a very powerful Lent.

This year, I have indeed been enjoying things like wine and so I have given that up, and all sweets. Also no social media at home/after work. More prayer intentions. I have a card I took from the back of St. Matthew’s with the pictures of all the seminarians in the Archdiocese, and I am praying for them. Writing letters again, and including a poem this time. I will share the poem later; don’t want to ruin the surprise for my friends who read this. I will be writing fewer letters, though.

But overall I am - resting. Resting in God. Remembering that indeed I am from dust and to dust I shall return. Trying slowness, patience, forgiveness, hope. Taking a good, hard look at my relationship with God. Wondering what it means to be helpless before God. Wondering how it is that Jesus himself understands helplessness. I will be revisiting the third week of the Spiritual Exercises.

“I ask for what I desire. Here it is what is proper for the Passion: sorrow with Christ in sorrow; a broken spirit with Christ so broken; tears; and interior suffering because of the great suffering which Christ endured for me” (SE 203).

Finding Jesus in Lent

Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote a very good thing about the Jean Vanier revelations for Angelus:

Finding Jesus in Lent

It is interesting, because she raises two thoughts I had immediately. The first is:

“I can’t trust anyone, can I? I can’t even trust my own judgment? How can I ever know if someone is holy? “

Then also that, “I don’t think it is any coincidence that we learned about Vanier just before Lent.”

It reminded me of how the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris caught on fire at the beginning of Holy Week last year. It was tragic and heart-rending as we entered a week focused on death and suffering. I don’t think that’s why either of these things happened, but that it is all right to find spiritual meaning in something that seems, at best, senseless. I think it is human to do so, actually.

So, Lent is here, as Lopez notes. I attended Ash Wednesday Mass at 8 am at the Cathedral and Fr. Conrad Murphy said that Lent is a time to “rend your heart and return to the Lord.” This was also in the first reading. My heart is rent, how about yours?