New York Occasions Op-Ed: The That means of Lent to This Unchurched Christian, by Margaret Renkl; Writer, Graceland, At Final: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South (2021)):
On Wednesday, in Catholic parishes internationally, a priest will dip his thumb right into a pot of ashes — the burned stays of blessed palms from final yr’s Palm Sunday Mass — and smudge the signal of the cross on every congregant’s brow. Performing this historic ritual, he’ll murmur, “Bear in mind that you’re mud, and to mud you shall return.”
The priest will say these phrases on Ash Wednesday, the primary day of Lent, however he won’t be saying these phrases to me.
I’ve had a troubled relationship with the church of my childhood since childhood itself, after I realized in Catholic college that I’d by no means be allowed to develop into a priest. For many years, however, the items of my religion outweighed the pronouncements of the institutional church that I discovered alienating or enraging. Human establishments are inherently flawed, and I’ve at all times cherished the rituals that linked me throughout time to so many others going through concern and loneliness and ache, to so many others discovering solace of their religion.
Then the pandemic quarantines left me unchurched by way of no selection of my very own, and the dying of our final father or mother, for whom there would solely ever be one church, left my husband and me free to make our personal selections about the place to worship. I got here to know that my rising feeling of non secular alienation wasn’t short-term. I cherished my parish, and I cherished our good, compassionate pastor, however I used to be carried out with the institutional church.
Nonetheless, I miss the neighborhood. I miss the singing. I miss serving in social justice ministries. I even miss the ashes.
Ash Wednesday isn’t a day for insurrection. It’s a day for fasting, reflection and prayer, a somber reminder that our lives are temporary, our days operating out. “Bear in mind that you’re mud, and to mud you shall return.” The longer this pandemic drags on, the clearer these phrases develop into.
At 60, I’m making peace with the mud to which I’ll return. For myself, at the very least — and solely for myself — I don’t even thoughts the thought of mortality, for I’ve thrown in my lot with immortality. And isn’t the promise of immortality what Lent prepares us for? How will I make prepared, now that I’m with out a church? What rituals will I observe, now that the Stations of the Cross not belong to me? …
[A]s a brand new member of the unchurched Christian trustworthy, what am I speculated to do with Lent? Absolutely there have to be some non secular follow that falls between a church-ordained ritual and a secular perfectibility mission. …
I can proceed to ponder, to be puzzled. I’ll nearly definitely proceed to really feel just a bit bit misplaced. I’ll search for a brand new church sometime, a brand new place to place all this sorrow and a brand new neighborhood with whom to share it, however I’m not obliged to seek out that place simply now. Ash Wednesday tells me solely to maintain attempting: to consider, to be higher, not to surrender hope. And that’s religion sufficient for any season.
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2022/03/ny-times-op-ed-the-meaning-of-lent-to-this-unchurched-christian.html
