1st Sunday in Lent

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

It’s Mardi Gras as I sit down to write to you, and my mind is numb. I began making remote preparations for Lent two months ago. Key members of the community have met again and again to plan our community’s journey through Lent into Easter, but right now it’s hard to remember anything that was decided. Do you have occasions for which you’ve planned so long and hard that, when they finally arrive, you seem to have no energy left for them? Maybe Mother Nature is trying to tell us not to take ourselves so seriously. She couldn’t be telling me that I’m getting old, could she?

Lent is not about us—it’s about God. What does God want to tell us this Lent? Where does God want to lead us? On Ash Wednesday you heard Jesus’ invitation to pray, fast, and share. Prayer asks us where we are with God, fasting asks us where we are with ourselves, and sharing/almsgiving asks us where we are with the rest of God’s people. Our faith community’s Lenten program is intended to help us find the answers. Our program will suggest a number of activities, but none of those activities are ends in themselves. They are intended to help open us up to God and God’s people—those whom we live with and those whom we’ll never meet.

I encourage you to join us in the undercroft this Wednesday for a community-wide simple supper. If you can, I encourage you to sign up for simple suppers in one another’s homes on the middle Wednesdays of Lent. If you can’t reasonably make it to someone else’s home, I encourage you to create simple suppers in your own household, whatever day of the week it might be. Remember, the point of the simple suppers is to take time, slow down, and listen to each other.

Peace and every blessing,

Loren, OFM