First Sunday of Lent

““Your paths, O God, are love and faithfulness” (Ps. 25)”

The first Sunday of Lent is an invitation to examine one’s path. In Mark’s Gospel, we see Jesus driven into the desert by the Spirit after his baptism in the Jordan. He was immersed in the waters of cleansing and healing. Did he need cleansing and healing? No, but we might, and Jesus is always leaving an example if we choose to see it.

Jesus journeyed into the desert wilderness for forty days. We have been journeying in a COVID wilderness for much longer than forty days. We feel like we’re surrounded by wild beasts and angry politicians and sometimes feel tempted to impatience with disgruntled citizens. However, we have also been accompanied by angels in the form of committed and kind health-care workers, brave front-line men and women who daily cater to our needs and the needs of society.

When Jesus returned from his desert experience, he invited Galileans and all of us into the spirit of repentance as he announced the Good News of the Kin-dom. To repent, I need to enter into deeper reflection and discernment to recognize the incongruity of my ways and the ways of society. Sometimes I hear challenges posed by the media that stir up dissension and unrest, that spatter others with doubt and worry. Can I use these forty days to consider the invitation to believe and live and spread the Good News?  Can I renew the covenant of faith by recognizing the presence of angels in my midst, and by working to dispel the harm of critical and negative voices? Might I see the sign of a renewed covenant in the beauty of creation, in the wholeness of humanity, in the lower numbers of infections from the pandemic, and in the new life promised by the unfolding vaccination program? May I live in renewed hope and trust?

-Sister Helen Russell, csj

A Reflection for Ash Wednesday

“ENOUGH ALREADY!”
For those of us steeped in the traditions of Lent, beginning each year on Ash Wednesday, and historically associated with acts of “giving up” we may this year, want to cry, “enough already”! The past year has been, for all peoples, a time of struggle, fear, and loss. We have seen the tragic loss of thousands upon thousands of lives. Some of us will have experienced such loss personally. We have not even been able to accompany loved ones in illness and dying or to participate in the healing rituals of grieving. Many have lost homes, hard-earned businesses, jobs, and dreams and we have lost much of the close intimacy of our relationships because of necessary social isolation. “So please don’t ask me to give up chocolate too!” and that is true. This year has been a year of great sacrifice for so many and although sacrifice or “giving up”, if done for the right reasons and offered to God, is an act of love it is by no means the heart of the meaning of Lent.

“An invitation to deepen our relationship with God”

Rather, Lent is the season of relationship. The traditional practices of Lent - prayer, fasting, and almsgiving hold meaning and relevance if and only if understood as an invitation to us to deepen our relationship with God and to be in right relationship with ourselves, with one another, and with all of creation. This integrated understanding of relationship is what is meant by the term “integral ecology”. All is connected. In this season, and perhaps especially in the troubled context and fragmented world in which we find ourselves, this Lent offers us a fresh opportunity to heal broken relationships, to deepen our love and care, and widen our horizons of connection. It is more than a simple “giving up”. The ancient Lenten practices are first and foremost a call to a deeper relationship and they are more than relevant for this new day.

So, how might we more fully “live Lent” this year? Many, who attend church on Ash Wednesday and receive the mark of the ashes on their foreheads may recall much debate some years ago because of a growing discomfort with the words used during the imposition of the ashes: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return”. Somehow, these words smacked of guilt and a lack of appropriate self-esteem. We replaced them with “repent and believe in the Gospel” – for many a more comfortable and positive phrase. But perhaps a return to the original words speaks a truth we need to hear again as we seek to heal and to deepen relationships this Lent. For, as both science and faith now remind us, we are indeed a part of creation, “dust of dust” and created as such by God with love. To begin to heal our relationships we must first understand just how glorious this is. Our whole being is affirmed in this belonging in and with creation and in recognizing such reality, we can allow Lent to invite us into becoming ever more deeply who God created us to be: in relationship, defined by relationship, sustained in a relationship of love.  

So what of the traditions and practicalities? In these difficult days, what is more healing than to go out into nature or if unable to do so to observe it from a window, in a plant, or flower in your home? Let this beauty embrace you, listen to it, see the reflection of God in it and give thanks, perhaps resolve one small way you can respond to the call to care for God’s earth. As Pope Francis says in his 2021 Lenten message, “Lent is precisely a season of hope when we turn back to God who patiently continues to care for his creation which we have so often mistreated.” From such a contemplative perspective, be led this Lent to the deepening of prayer, being present to the Divine Presence making time to deepen relationship with God whose love is unfailing even in the dark and stormy days of life. From this immersion in creation and in prayer allow yourself to know that you are loved and intrinsically connected to all others. Be gentle with yourself, an act often much harder than ascetic practices! Be gentle with others.

But what of Lenten fasting? Perhaps there are ways of fasting that are especially meaningful today. Not simply fasting from something I like or motivated by a slimmer figure but fasting from something for the good of the Earth, have some meatless days, or fast from indiscriminate energy use, for example. For the love and care of others, perhaps fast from judgments, gossip, or harsh words and instead call someone who is isolated and alone, affirm someone, reach out to mend a broken relationship, finds ways even during isolation to let someone know he or she is in your thoughts, your heart and your prayers. Then Lenten almsgiving follows and becomes more than giving money, although gifts of some kind may help those who are struggling financially just now, it can also be the gift of your patience at home, imagining ways to touch the lives of others, to gift your time, widen the reach of your generosity.

As we begin Lent this year go deeper, reach out, pray and give thanks. On Ash Wednesday make it a day of prayer, reflection, and commitment anew for hope in your heart and in the world.  Indeed, this is “enough already”!

-Sister Mary Rowell, csj

Lent, God’s Love Story for His Children

Lent is often associated with ‘giving something up’, but it is really a time of spiritual discipline, a time of preparation for the great feast of Easter. 

A disciple is one who learns from the master. Immediately after his baptism, Mark says that the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness/desert to be tempted by the devil. The desert represents times in our lives of struggle, disorientation, and painful experiences that make us vulnerable to temptation.  Lent offers a special opportunity of taking our woundedness to the divine physician for healing. 

We enter into the rhythm of lent beginning with Ash Wednesday.  

Jesus invites us to greater intimacy through 

Prayer – healing for ourselves and the world; 

Fasting – depriving self of physical comforts through discipline and growing trust in God. 

Almsgiving – sharing our resources generously with the poor. 

In the following five weeks, we journey with the gospel themes of repentance, mercy, forgiveness, as we build the Kingdom of God in preparation for Easter.  

Passion/Palm Sunday week, the holiest week of the Christian year focuses our attention on the sacred mysteries of:  

Holy Thursday: the Blessed Eucharist and the washing of the feet, 

Good Friday: the suffering and death of Jesus for the salvation of the world  

Easter Sunday: Jesus vanquishes death forever through love.  

Lent is a good time to begin or deepen the Lenten practices of prayer, discipline, and almsgiving.  Through these ascetic practices, we learn to nurture the silence within and come to experience joy and wellbeing. 

Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus. 

-Sister Ann Marshall, csj