Today we are celebrating the strength, determination, and resilience of women everywhere.
Michelle Obama | International Women’s Day March 8th
Ash Wednesday in Two Words
If there are two words that perhaps best describe the intent of Ash Wednesday and of the Lenten season that follows, those words are found in the Scripture assigned to the day. In the second reading in the liturgy for Ash Wednesday (2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2) we read “be reconciled to God” .. in the present moment “for now is the acceptable time” (and what a hard time we are facing in the world just now; a time when our Lenten commitments find added importance).
What might the words, “be reconciled” mean as, once again, we are called to move into the season of Lent? What might they mean as we hope to sustain our Lenten commitments beyond the designated season in ways that impact our living for the life of God’s world?
Reconciliation, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is to “restore friendly relationships”. To deepen, strengthen or to restore relationships, is then, at the very heart of living Lent and indeed life more widely. As I begin Lent, I might ask myself how is my relationship with God, with self, with other humans and with all of creation of which I am a part? How am I called to repent of broken relationships? How do I need to become more deeply a person of relationship and reconciliation? What do I need to do so as form or deepen relationships of love and respect?
These questions go far beyond the three traditional practices of Lent, the call to prayer, fasting and almsgiving (charity toward the neighbour) and yet the traditional practices remain significant as a means toward the restoration or deepening of right relationships. Lenten practices are never ends in themselves. They are always God-and other-directed! They help us creatively mend and build relationship with God, other humans and all of creation. It is only in relationship that they find meaning.
In Lent we remind ourselves anew of the Pascal Mystery and Jesus’ journey to the cross and to resurrection not because God wills suffering but because in the face of injustice and cruelty Christ commits to an ultimate act of reconciliation and an act of hope. In so doing he calls us to follow Him, to repair relationships that cause pain, separation and destruction. He opens for us a way by reminding us how deeply we are loved, even in our vulnerabilities and frailties; loved in order that we may love in turn. In Lent we walk with Him and he walks with us in the joys and turmoil of our lives.
So, this Lent and especially in our current, violent, broken world may we be “reconciled” and become reconcilers like Christ, menders of breaches, bearers of hope!
-Sister Mary Rowell, CSJ
Image: Ahna Ziegler/Unsplash
Weekly Pause and Ponder
World Day of Prayer 2025
February is the shortest month of the year and we are already looking at March and planning for World Day of Prayer which always takes place each year on the first Friday of March.
This year's prayer service was put together by the women of the Cook Islands and is to be celebrated on March 7, 2025. I appreciated finding this attached video because I had no idea where the Cook Islands were. The women of the Cook Islands tell their story as indigenous people being colonized and their story is not unlike that of the indigenous people in our own country of Canada.
““I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.””
If you wish to take part in the prayer service, please search for the Christian Churches in your area that will be gathering to pray together for the women of the Cook Islands.
-Sister Elaine Cole, CSJ
Image: Hanny Naibaho/Unsplash
Becoming a Topsy-Turvy Survivor
stock photo from Unsplash
Picture in your mind, the damaged Delta plane at the Toronto Pearson Airport, endlessly shown by news providers with its roof unnaturally resting on the tarmac. It offers a striking metaphor for our world today. Just like the plane in this unimaginable position, the global situation often feels unbalanced and unraveling.
Personally, I experience myself living in a time of profound disruption, where what I once perceived as quite familiar and secure seems to be shifting under me. Whether it be climate crisis, social upheaval, or geopolitical tensions, it is as if my world is being upturned. Too often I feel “groundless” and disorientated, forcing my inner self to constantly attempt to right itself amid uncertainty and chaos.
The inverted plane symbolizes for me my experience of a shift where everything I once held to be so, has been turned upside down. The certainty I once relied on now feels upended, leaving me in a world where old norms no longer seem to apply. Longtime friendships are threatened, lies are spoken as truth, and the unthinkable happens every day.
Through the prompt emergency responses and skillfully handled evacuation of the Delta Connection Flight 4819, operated by Endeavor Air, all passengers and crew, survived.
I found myself seeing moments of hope in witnessing these survivors and as I looked beyond the wreckage to the plane’s flight code. At its core, the word of endeavor connotes the pursuit of something meaningful or challenging. Is that in itself not emblematic of the human spirit needed by folks of goodwill at this moment in history when faced with the tensions of competing interests. Furthermore, the name connector, in the flight’s identifier, highlights for me the need to focus our individual and communal strivings on actions which facilitate connection rather than words and actions which serve to disconnect us.
The necessity and value of fostering connection with one another at the personal, local, national, and global levels is not to be underestimated. It is vital if we, as global wayfarers, hope to be survivors of our global upturning.
-Sister Nancy Wales, CSJ
Stock Images: Jack Millard / Kendrick Fernandez/Unsplash
““What we must do,
I suppose,
is to hope the world
keeps its balance;
what we are to do, however,
with our hearts
waiting and watching—truly
I do not know.”
”