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It began with a cup of tea on Ash Wednesday. I had just filled it when my Lyft arrived early for the airport.
“I am so sorry,” I texted my husband. “My Lenten practice this year was going to be to try to keep the house more tidy, but when you get home you’ll find I left a full tea mug in the middle of the living room coffee table.” [Short background note: My husband does most of the cleaning and when I leave things around it irritates him, though he doesn’t complain… much]
“You will have to do extra penance now,” he texted back. [Short background note: He jokes this way sometimes.]
“I’m married. I would think that would suffice,” I replied. [Short background note: I joke this way sometimes.]
There was a silent two minutes and then a message appeared, cut and pasted from his favorite new buddy Chat GPT:
“No, being married is not considered ‘extra penance’ in the Catholic faith; instead it is viewed as a sacrament, a sacred covenant that brings grace and blessings, and comes with its own set of responsibilities to live out a holy life with your spouse, which can be seen as a positive path toward sanctification rather than a form of punishment.”
Short side note: Friends, and this is precisely why we must be very careful about whose hands we allow dangerous new AI technology to fall into.
But that is a newsletter for another day.
More immediately: What would I be doing for Lent this year? It was only 10 a.m. on Ash Wednesday and already my intended penitential practice and my back up plan had both fallen through.
Such is often the case for me in Lent. I have good ideas leading up to the season about how I’ll make some real changes to my life, but then have a hard time sticking with them for very long. (Though usually I do make it longer than 10 a.m. on Ash Wednesday. Dang.). I think part of it is that I find life pretty hard to deal with as it is without trying to add anything that would make it more challenging.
I think of my friend Mary who told me of greeting a four year old in the Bronx, “How are you doing today?” The child’s reply: “You’re lookin at me, ain’t ya.” Sometimes it feels like being alive and out of bed should be enough, right?
And some days it probably is. But the other thing that I’m trying to be a little better about this Lent is making sure to begin every day with a little bit of scripture. That’s not particularly noble. I was already trying to do that before Lent so I’m not sure it really counts. But I’m trying to be even more faithful to the practice, even more regular. And not race through it. Because sometimes having a new passage everyday just feels like too much. One can’t hold on to very much that way. Just one passage that maybe I can look at several times over the course of a day, sometimes over a couple days. I’m slowly reading a book called Abide: Keeping Vigil with the Word of God by the late Benedictine sister, Macrina Wiederkehr. The chapter I’m currently working through is the one on Colossians 3:1-17.
Here are a few lines from that passage that I’m trying to make mantras as I attempt Lent anew this week:
- “[Y]our life is hidden with Christ in God” (vs. 3)
- “But now you must put them all away: anger, fury, malice, slander, and obscene language out of your mouths.” (vs. 8)
- “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” (vs. 12)
- “Let the peace of Christ control your hearts” (vs 15)
- “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (v. 16)
There are other lovely gems in there, but I can’t take on a whole lot right now. Just choosing a few words that nourish me, that I can try to put into practice. And then if I fail by 10 a.m., I can just try to repeat them again at 11 a.m. Perhaps Lent doesn’t need to be consistently grand. More a steady return to one’s intention no matter how many times one fails.
I’d love to share with you today an interview I did with Sr. Julia Walsh, FSPA for her fabulous podcast Messy Jesus Business. Messy Jesus Business is all about figuring out how to live a Gospel-centered life, without shying away from how messy it not only can be, but inherently will be. When we met, we talked about managing hard conversations and questions of truth—which admittedly are things I talk about a lot. But Julia has a way of interviewing that gets more personal than most, so we talk here more about my own life story and the questions I’ve got about my own field rather than all the answers. It’s, you know… messy. Something a little different than maybe you’d usually hear from me. And there is a shout out in there to the School Sisters of Notre Dame and my high school alma mater in St. Louis. Hope you enjoy as you try to be your best Lenten self amidst the everyday challenges of life.
(Photo Credit: Nordwood Themes from Unsplash)