March 9th, 2024
How will I be different on Holy Saturday than I am on Ash Wednesday? This is the question I ask myself each year when deciding on my Lenten practice.
Last year, I participated in Fiat 40 - a scaled-down version of the Exodus 90 program. I gave up secular music, read only religious-themed books, and increased my daily prayer time. I even helped to lead a group of women through the program with me. Last year, Fiat 40 gave me a plan and structure for the Lenten season. On Holy Saturday, I felt renewed and closer to God.
This year, I decided I didn’t need a program: I was spiritually mature enough to wing it.
(Narrator: She could not wing it. She utterly failed at winging it.)
Although I haven’t been in a rigorous Lenten discipline like last year, one habit I’ve cultivated this Lent is listening to the daily Hallow App reflection.
These daily reflections are centered around Fr. Walter Ciszek’s autobiography He Leadeth Me. Fr. Ciszek was imprisoned for 20 years by the Soviets during and after World War II: his story is equal partscompelling, inspiring, and incredible.
Throughout my day, when I complain about small things: going to yet another meeting or someone cutting me off in traffic, I think of Fr. Ciszek. These daily “trials” I face are nothing in comparison to what he endured: solitary confinement, sub-zero temperatures, hard labor for 15 hours a day in the harshest conditions, torture, and starvation, to name just a few.
I pray none of us will ever face such hardships as these. But the fact is that we will bear a cross - or many crosses - in our lives. Illness, infertility, loneliness, death of a loved one - we cannot escape sadness and loss.
But whatever comes, like Fr. Ciszek, we can know with certainty that God is with us. We can lay whatever trial comes at the foot of the cross and know that we are not alone.
I pray the next three weeks of Lent are transformative for me and you. That we are closer to God than we were on Ash Wednesday. I pray our hearts are open to receive his will for us and that we bear it well.
Cathi Kennedy is an impassioned writer who lives with her husband in Northern Indiana. You can sign up to follow her at cathikennedy.com.