Hi Friends,
Peace be with you!
During the tense, chaotic, and isolating Lent of 2020, a meme circulated the Christian social media space. It expressed variations of the theme: This is the Lentiest Lent I ever Lented.
Funny? Yes. True? Yes and amen.
Sometimes our lives and the liturgical seasons flow in and out of each other in ways that feel providential. Lent of 2020 felt like that—so much sacrifice, so much stripping away of most everything we knew as normal. For me—and maybe for you—this Lent feels similarly providentially placed in time and space.
It’s a Lent when I say, “Lord, life is heavy right now because many people I love are suffering greatly. It feels appropriate to be in Lent. I need Lent because I need these disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—for me and to sacrifice for those close to me. I need the stripping away of things that don’t matter. Above all, I need you.”
One of my greatest consolations this Lent has been reading the Gospel of Mark. A couple years ago, my spiritual director suggested I bring my prayer back to basics. When prayer feels complicated, impersonal, or dry, “open the Gospel and read,” she said.
When I sit down and open Mark’s Gospel during my morning prayer time, I get this twinge of excited anticipation for encounter with Jesus. The Word of God became flesh and we meet this God made man in the Gospel. If you want and need to encounter Jesus, open the Gospel. (Mark’s Gospel is the shortest if you’ve never read a Gospel straight through and feel intimidated to start.)
I’d like to share one of my journal entries from the past week with you so we can pray together. This is after reading a portion of Mark 7:
Jesus “entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there” (Mark 7:24). Again, Jesus “took him aside in private, away from the crowd” (Mark 7:33).
Why did you want your miracles, healings, casting out of demons to be done in private?
I don’t know the answer, but it encourages me to be small, humble, content to love and let you love in me in the quiet of relationships.
That your love being active in me, that me cooperating with you in a one-on-one encounter that will go nowhere else but there is following your will in the way you loved.
Instead of a quiet or humble love being “not enough” or a “just a” or an inconsequential kind of thing, it is important, sacred, charged with your life because it’s part of Your Way.
Your Way.
And to participate in Your Way is the gift of a life.
It is purpose and mission.
It is peace and strength.
It is gain.
It is light in darkness.
Friends, I am praying for you on this Lenten road. We are pilgrims together—thanks be to God!
Christ’s Peace,
Caitlan
P.S. And lest I get too serious—which my mother reminds me I sometimes do—even Lenty Lents are full of God’s goodness. In acorns that want to be oak trees (that I mistake for weeds). In teething babies on sun soaked blankets. In nourishing meals of homemade soup and sourdough. Even in the dark, God is good.
You have a way with words that touches my soul, always❣️The Spirit is at work allowing you to inspire your readers in ever way‼️🙌🙏❤️