The first month of Autumn carries a particular symbolic weight for me.  There are memories of job changes, of my dad in the last stages of his cancer and the anniversary of the death of mum.  I see it as a transformative time of softened, darkening days, drifting leaves and always, always Lent.  A pondering time.  The lessons of life providing a powerful backdrop to the spirit of Lent. 

Much of this Lent work is invisible, of course.  The wounds of the heart are rarely obvious to the world.  There are the occasional external tell-tale signs, a sharpness of manner perhaps, or a withdrawal from the normal social world.  The natural environment offers a reminder of this balance between transparency and invisibility: we can see the natural changes around us and at the same time we know that much of what is happening is beyond our sight.  One day, a tree has leaves, the next those very leaves have changed colour and then they have drifted to the ground.  What has happened, we wonder.  How is it that yesterday this leaf was attached to its home and now it lies adrift, ready to be swept away.  One day, a life well-lived, the next a life in disarray.  How is it, we wonder, that this vital person could have died, that illness has visited so quickly, that a dream or hope has been crushed and lost so rapidly perhaps enabled by the heavy tread of another. 

The spirit of Lent invites us to think deeply about our lives – and about how our God is journeying with us.  We all experience times when we can feel the powerful presence of a loving God – the smile from a loved one, a phone call at the right moment, the gentle presence of the ‘other’ in our lives.  This is our God made visible, we murmur to ourselves.  And there are times when we strain to see the presence of God.  The nose to the dust times, the pillow middle of the night tears, the sense of profound loneliness.  The desert times – this is the God of the invisible, we may think. 

But the essential message of Lent, I think, is that we need to be still, to take a holy pause and attend to that which is the invisible in our lives.  Pope Francis in his Lent message for 2024 observed: 

It is time to act, and in Lent, to act also means to pause.  To pause in prayer, in order to receive the word of God, to pause like the Samaritan in the presence of a wounded brother or sister.  Love of God and love of neighbour are one love.  Not to have other gods is to pause in the presence of God beside the flesh of our neighbour.  For this reason, prayer, almsgiving and fasting are not three unrelated acts, but a single movement of openness and self-emptying, in which we cast out the idols that weigh us down, the attachments that imprison us. 

This time of pause can be a challenge.  It may feel easier to stay with the wounds that bind – it can be hard to let go of humiliations, slights and hurts.  But eventually, if we are patient enough, if we can sit quietly for long enough with God, the sharpness of hurt will soften, and we will be able to gaze at it with a lightness of heart.  We may even, when we are ready, be able to pray for those who have wounded us.  This is a powerful moment – when we can offer in peace the one who has caused us pain to the loving care of God. 

The early Christian Monks understood this:

Somebody asked Antony, ‘what shall I do in order to please God?  He replied, ‘Do what I tell you, which is this: wherever you go, keep God in mind; whatever you do, follow the example of holy Scripture; wherever you are, stay there and do not move away in a hurry.  If you keep to these guidelines, you will be saved.’ (The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks n.1). 

So let us stay with our Lent spirit and not hurry away.  Let us take the word of God into our hearts and allow it to shape the sharp edges of the burdens we are carrying.  And let us remember as we draw towards the Paschal Triduum that the one who made God visible, Jesus, revealed his spirit to the world. 

May the work of our holy pause provide fertile ground for the grains of life we sow.  

By Cathy Jenkins

Published: 15 March 2024