What If Lent Looked Different This Year? A Reflection on Prayer, Healing, and Letting God Lead

"This is the Lentiest Lent I Ever Did Lent," a friend of mine said in the midst of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown. It was funny. And true. And every year when Lent rolls around, I hear her voice in my head say those exact words. It makes me pause and think about what Lent means, and it allows me to be grateful that I'm not sitting through the dumpster fire of working full-time, homeschooling (if that's what we want to call it), pursuing my Master's degree, and otherwise just trying to navigate all the chaos. Although, I suppose there's still time for another pandemic to roll around this Lenten season. I pray that it doesn't. Traditionally, Lent has always been my favorite liturgical time of year. It's a mixture of extended prayer time, exploring new types of prayer, and penance coupled with a nasty, wintry start that blooms into a beautiful spring culminating in my favorite holiday – Easter. In Michigan, the weather usually cooperates perfectly with Lent, and the rainy weather and slushy mud today don't disappoint. The two vomiting people in the house and the epic migraine I woke up with this morning also seem like an appropriate way to start off my Lent. Although it seems to be off to a smashing start, my Lent started to go off the rails by 6 a.m. So where did it go wrong?

I got up at 5 a.m. to pray, which is my normal pattern. But instead of my usual mental prayer, I decided to do a Lenten guided meditation series that started with the Litany of Humility. Now, I've prayed this prayer countless times (usually during Lent) and have always been moved to recognize and be freed from pride in my life – which is the intention of this Litany. But an interesting thing happened as I heard the words "from the desire of being esteemed (loved, extolled, honored). Deliver me, O Jesus," I felt a deep pain in my heart. But not because I was feeling attached to these things or because of any sort of guilt. I felt the longing of a little child standing before an absent parent just wanting to be held. To be esteemed, loved, extolled, and honored. So I stopped the meditation and just listened to God.

I suppose this is the part where I say that God spoke to me. He didn't – at least not in a dramatic fashion. I sat there for another 15 minutes or so just contemplating the goodness of a parent giving a child esteem, love, praise, and honor. Not because the child earns it, but because the child deserves it simply because they are a human being made in the image and likeness of God with a profound and unimaginable dignity. I considered Mary and Joseph with a 5-year-old Jesus sitting on their laps. What beauty God had intended for these things. And at what point did the goodness of these things become so disfigured as to become pride? Yes, the obvious answer is the Fall. But that's not what I was thinking. At what point in my life did it happen? Were these things lavished on me so as to spoil me (hint – absolutely not), or was I so starved of them that I fought for them fiercely and disorder resulted? Or maybe, just little bit by little bit, parental inattention chipped away at a little soul until that little soul just accumulated a coping mechanism here and a coping mechanism there until the point where pride developed as a survival tool. Have you ever tried to build a boat with paper and Scotch tape? I have. It holds for a while, but eventually the water overtakes it and it sinks. Boats don't do well if built with the wrong materials and tools. What if my little sins (you know those ones that you take to confession over and over again) and imperfections are ghosts of materials and tools ill-suited for the job? What if they developed, not because I was needing less esteem, love, praise, and honor, but more?

Now this isn't a new thought for me, per se. I have been doing some form of Catholic healing prayer for well over a decade, and I am very familiar with how wounds, vows, etc., are the roots of our sins. However, this is the first time I have ever felt God pull me out of my traditional Lenten practices and ask me a question: What if Lent looked different this year?

So, of course, I will do the obligatory fasting and abstinence. And I will still give up the sweets – I think. But I am going to step out of my usual self and simply ask, "what if it looks different this year, and what is that?" And for everyone thinking, "she should have done this before Lent," that's OK. I get you. I typically spend several weeks considering Lent and talking to God about it. And I didn't stray from that practice this year. And don't panic, my fellow Ignatian spirituality friends, I'm not violating Rule 5. I am far from desolation.

At this point, I should probably tie this into fertility care. But I don't think I will other than this: if you find yourself struggling to willpower your way through change (maybe sticking to your charting or observations), then maybe ask the question, "what if I approach it differently?" and see where God leads you. Happy Lenting, my friends.