A Change in Destination

The irony is not lost on me. I'm drowning in it, in fact.

Oh, the scorn I heaped upon those advertising (because it always seems to be in the context of selling something, even if it's just the free trial of an app) an "amazing!" Lent or "the best Lent ever!"

"Don't these people get the somber nature of these forty days?" I huffed while proudly donning my sackcloth. "I don't want Lent to be a great experience -- I want it to be transformative. I want to be different at the end of it." I wrote as much, and more, here in recent days.

But what I described, in what was at best naivete and at worst arrogance, was a sabbatical, a retreat, a quiet time of reflection. I described it as an "intentional detour" off a freeway onto a quiet country road.

How lovely. How quaint. How positively comfortable.

What was I thinking?

The forty days of Lent are -- I should know by now -- analogous to Jesus's forty days in the desert. In the desert. Jesus was not ensconced in a cabin up north by a lake (and neither am I, for the record), surrounded by plenty of good spiritual reading and only the sounds of nature to break the silence.

And yet somehow, that was what I was envisioning for myself this Lent.

Oh, my imaginary Lenten refuge wasn't going to be all steaming cups of tea in the morning and crackling fires at night, bookends to days of spellbinding spiritual insights as I read and wrote and prayed (a little) and (mostly) fed off the quiet. The quiet. Could I have picked a more self-serving backdrop for these forty days? It's an introvert's paradise.

Even my fasting is designed for minimal inconvenience. I already fast three days a week (mostly for health reasons, marginally -- I confess -- for spiritual ones), so there was no real sacrifice there. I swore off Facebook and Bluesky but kept LinkedIn because, well, where else am I going to post my Lenten reflections? I have a profile to curate, you know. And while I like the idea of not frequenting any news sites, don't I have a civic obligation to be informed? I'll just scan the headlines but won't scroll -- I promise!

I planned a Lent that was going to be, in its own way, by my own definition, "amazing" and "the best Lent ever!" Those weren't the words I used, but they describe the net effect I was aiming for.

My Lent, as I designed it, was going to be perfect -- for me. And it was -- is -- utterly at odds with the way Jesus spent His forty days.

The words of today's Old Testament reading from Isaiah 58 bring me up short:

"Is this the manner of fasting I wish, of keeping a day of penance?... Do you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?"

Sometimes Scripture confronts you without warning. This reading was an abrupt course correction -- something on the order of "Danger ahead! Bridge out!" I read it after a particularly dark night of the soul. What I wanted, what I cried out for in those hours was God's reassurance. What I got was silence -- but not the kind the introvert feeds on. And then when He spoke, it was with the questions in Isaiah 58.

I am no better than those I disdain for their eager anticipation of Lent.

And I am no better than the people of Israel whom He confronts in today's reading.

As if that were not revelation enough, a day or two ago, a verse came, unbidden, to my mind:

"For I know my transgressions; my sin is ever before me." (Psalm 51)

And this very verse was in today's reading from the Psalms.

My "sin of the moment" (not that there's only one, but this one is occupying center stage) is pride. I entered into the Lenten season seeking wisdom, and knowledge, and a comfortable cocoon in which to receive them. That was my plan.

How that was supposed to transform me is a question almost laughable in its -- in my -- ignorance.

God uses the wilderness -- a literal desert, a dark night, extended time without the comfort of food -- for His purposes. That is His plan.

My "intentional detour" has turned out to be to a place I did not anticipate and would not have chosen. But the signs He has put up along the road tell me that:

• He means business, and
• He is here.

So I will follow this road. This road.

#lent #catholic