Lent…again
It’s Lent in the Catholic world. Prayer, fasting, almsgiving. I love Lent. It’s my favorite liturgical season. I think it’s because I’m action-oriented and Lent is about changing behaviors and seeing how that impacts both us and others for the better. Whether I’m fasting, giving, or praying, the whole season seems to say to me, “Just do it for 40 days and see what happens.”
That being said, I have yet to complete a “successful” Lent, which indicates my own misguided standards. For example, I never fast from sugar for ALL 40 days. Recently I avoided someone who called me because they really needed to talk. I don’t always fully participate with my faith community in Lenten services. I’m not saying that these are the “best practices” for Lent, but they are all actions I freely chose to practice and failed to do well. Sometimes I just gave up halfway through the season (I have an “all-or-nothing” tendency), yet at other times I had the grace to see this “failure” as an invitation to deeper, prayerful self-reflection…which seems to me to be the point of Lent: 40 days to practice what we preach. When I’m honest with myself, I know that I am more preachy than practical in Gospel living. It’s one of the reasons that being a Third Order Franciscan is a good fit for me: continual conversion is a primary value.
Another reason I love Lent is that there are so many opportunities for conversion. I live in the United States and have been following the Way of Jesus in a Franciscan congregation for over 25 years. The longer I live here, and the deeper I dive into the Gospel, the more I am challenged to live my faith with integrity. This is increasingly highlighted in the Lenten season for me: I commit to fasting and look forward to Friday fish-fries; I give alms online to well-known charities because it’s easier than giving to someone I know personally who has a lot of needs (will they need something after Easter?); and praying publicly nowadays gets so political…sometimes it’s just easier to keep it private (I justify that with Mt 6:5-6).
Lent calls me to double check not only my behaviors, but my motivations as I engage in behaviors that on the surface can seem quite virtuous (better application of Mt 6:5-6). Behaving in certain culturally sanctioned ways, especially when it’s comfortable and efficient, are more and more tempting for me these days. In fact, I have a Top 10 list of my daily temptations (i.e., virtuous behaviors with questionable motivations):
- Be safe.
- Be nice.
- Stay in your lane.
- Don’t upset others.
- Don’t get political.
- Be on the right side.
- Make it look good.
- Be successful.
- DIY.
- “Follow the rules and keep your head low” (actual advice given to me).
All of these are personal temptations, and another temptation is to think they only matter to me. The important thing to remember is that personal behaviors DO impact others, whether we are aware of it or not. How I respond to my Top-10 makes a difference…do I contribute to my community’s redemption or am I complicit in our social sins?
As I write this, I minister at the border where I talk with families who have been separated because of the U.S. policy of mass deportations. I sit with mothers who have no idea how to provide for their children. The U.S. and Israel just bombed Iran. I am a citizen of the United States and I seriously question my level of complicity in these sins for the sake of my own safety, comfort, rules-following and being a law-abiding citizen.
St. Francis of Assisi is said to have inspired his followers toward the end of his life by telling them, “Let us begin again for until now we have done nothing.”
Thank God for Lent.
For more by this author and more on Lent, visit our web site.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration (FSPA) Eileen McKenzie has ministered as a nurse, clinical researcher, acupuncturist and, from 2018 to 2022, president for the FSPA community. She currently serves the social justice mission of her congregation as a member of their Anti-Racism and Truth and Healing Teams, working to dismantle white privilege, colonialism and responding to the congregation’s history of administering a Native American Boarding School in Odanah, Wisconsin. At this time in her life she is accompanied by people in migration through the Kino Border Initiative, a bi-national, inclusive Roman Catholic organization whose vision is migration with dignity. She can be reached by email at emckenzie@kinoborderinitiative.org.
