Lenten Reflection Series: A Call to Participation

by Fr. Donal Godfrey, S.J., Associate Director for Faculty and Staff Spirituality and University Chaplain

Stephen Colbert was in good form a few weeks ago on The Late Show interviewing fellow Catholic Fr. James Martin, S.J. Asked what he was giving up for Lent this year, Martin said he finds out when a Jewish friend phones him on Ash Wednesday and tells him what to give up, a tradition they began as friends in college.

I don’t know about you, but I feel we have given up so much this past year, some more profoundly than others. We have experienced so much loss in a year of pandemic, and we have much to grieve. Of course, giving up things is still a fine tradition; but perhaps this year rather than focusing on individual sin, this Lent there is also an invitation to focus on social sin.

Isaiah, the prophet proclaims in a reading this week in my Catholic liturgy:

“Thus says the Lord, if you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech; if you bestow your bread on the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted. Then light shall rise for you in the darkness.”

Amanda Gorman, a life-long parishioner of St. Brigid’s Catholic Church in Los Angeles captured the essence of the message of Isaiah in her powerful inaugural poem:

“If we merge mercy with might
and might with right
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright
so let us leave behind a country
better than the one we left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will arise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
we will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
We will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
If only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it.”

So this Lent perhaps we can see an invitation to be brave enough to be it. And, explore with others how to become the better country Gorman envisions. Isaiah and the themes of Lent show us a pathway.

As writer Fr. Lawrence Mick asks: “What can you do this Lent to make a dent in the structures and policies that condemn so many in the world to lives of oppression and despair? This may mean giving up some habits or conveniences that keep us comfortable, and it will certainly be harder than fasting from candy. But it holds the promise of light rising in the darkness.”