The Right Way

Last year Lent exploded on us. We’d just settled into our seasonal practices – reinvigorated prayer, deeper clarity, fasting and making space – when the world was rocked by crisis. Driven inward, deprived of sacraments, isolated and uncertain, the Lenten landscape became a real desert, maybe for the first time.

Some of us got sick. Some of us lost people whose absence can never be filled. Some of us lost jobs or had them reinvented in ways that were strange, burdensome, or dangerous. The penitential season stretched longer than forty days. Spring came anyway, with many of us watching from our windows. Each flower seemed achingly lovely, a promise that hope does not disappoint those brave enough to hold onto it.

Our world will continue to be broken for a while. There remains peril in proximity, especially for the physically vulnerable. The struggle to make ends meet continue to be a challenge for those who can’t easily reinvent themselves for the new reality. But as we’ve learned in a long year of soul-searching, for too many of us, these things were true before. Equality in health care, housing, education, and economic opportunity slumbers in the fantasy stage of our perceived dreams.

So we enter this new season of repentance with a lot on our minds and in our hearts. Let’s mend our world together, committing to the common good as we seek to heal body and soul. Let’s reimagine community through the benevolent eyes of Jesus.