Lent begins tomorrow with the traditional marking of ashes on our foreheads, and continues for six weeks until Christ’s Resurrection on Easter Sunday. Lent is traditionally a time of fasting, prayer, penance, and almsgiving – all actions intended to draw our focus away from ourselves and bring us nearer to God. Although the church does not require children under the age of 14 to participate in fasting and abstinence, children can and should make their Lenten journey meaningful and spiritually significant.
This year, I suspect Lent’s path may be a bit different for most people. For six weeks, we are asked to deny ourselves something we like, e.g., TV, chocolate, video games; and through this sacrifice, we are drawn closer to our Heavenly Father. However, for the past 11 months, during shut-downs and quarantines, we have been denied much. For the good of our families, our community, and our nation, we have sacrificed spending time with friends and relatives, and we have not been able to participate in sports, dining out, or attending concerts or movies. We have felt the sadness and isolation, which has been the result of social and physical distancing. Hopefully during these moments we have turned to God in prayer and shared our struggles with Him.
Over this past year, when I have found myself “in a funk” and feeling sorry for myself, the best way for me to take my mind off the situation was to do something physical (clean, exercise, try cooking a new recipe). I also knew that others in my family or at school were facing more daunting struggles, so rather than focus on my own wants, I tried to be present for them. We oftentimes don’t know the extent of others’ situations, and it is important now more than ever to be a beacon of light, a source of strength for everyone we encounter. To the cashier at the grocery store, the receptionist at the doctor’s office, or the Amazon delivery driver, a smile and a ‘thank you so much’ just might be what that person needed at the moment. We certainly know that Mother Teresa was a source of strength for the poorest of the poor in Calcutta during her lifetime, and we also know she suffered greatly from what she called the long dark night, when she felt “the doors of heaven had been closed and bolted against her” (see excerpt below). Yet, in pictures, we always see her smiling, and those who knew her said she was the most joyful person they had ever met.
So, this year during Lent perhaps we do not need to give something up to show God our love for Him. Perhaps a better way to fulfill our Lenten journey is to make someone else’s journey a bit easier. That is certainly something we can ask our children to do because their smiles always light up the darkness.
In 1957, Mother Teresa confided the following thoughts:
In the darkness…Lord, my God, who am I that you should forsake me? The child of your love – and now become as the most hated one. The one – you have thrown away as unwanted – unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer…Where I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul. Love – the word – it brings nothing. I am told God lives in me – and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.”
Taken from Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, a collection of letters Mother Teresa wrote to her spiritual advisors over many years.
Deo Gratias,
Kathy
