Lent

Lent has arrived and I am yet without a great plan. I had a plan, or the beginnings of one, that was not really great at all. I was to be nursing by now, so the regular rules of fasting wouldn't apply. With the sleeping and feeding "schedules" of a newborn, I knew that any ideas of regular attendance at anything or to anything would be a bit too ambitious for us. I would be satisfied by Easter with whatever effort I made.
This week I have found myself begging God to let me sit this one out this year. Really, God, Ich habe genug.
For several weeks I have known that Ash Wednesday would arrive, and now I would be obligated to fast and make all sorts of penances. Fasting was the easy part. Penances of abstaining from treats and the like was doable. I can do these motions.
I have some reading I can be doing, including this wonderful book LC gave me last week, The Passion of the Lamb. Amazon assures me that The Power of the Cross is soon to be in my mailbox, too.
If we were to remain in Pittsburgh through Lent, we would have countless oppportunities to attend weekday Mass, Stations of the Cross, Adoration, and Reconciliation. The work was already done for us. We would only have to show up. However, in China we may not have some of the same luxuries. We really have to take it upon ourselves to find them or do them ourselves.
I know that anything we bear on earth is nothing compared to the Passion and the Cross. That is what I have to remember. I don't get to sit this one out.

Comments

Anonymous said…
A wise man once told me that, sometimes, you have to fake it to make it. It's always helped me.
Anonymous said…
The work you have this Lent is work enough: grieving. And, no disrespect to JC, maybe watching and being present at the Passion was equal to going through it for his mother and friends. You and your family are now put at the foot of the Cross this season. Maybe looking to Mary and to those who have similarly lost loved ones will give you partners in suffering and reason to cultivate hope after the deepest mourning passes.