Lent this year is filled with contradictions and controversies that can be captured in the familiar quote from Charles Dickens’s novel, A Tale of Two Cities, “It is the best of times. It is the worst of times.” The season of Lent is the “best of times” because we take time of reflection, looking deeply at our own living of the Gospel and how we are taking on the mind and the heart of Jesus throughout these forty days. Lent is ultimately about internal change, being broken open, being sensitized to God’s mercy and compassion in our own lives and how mercy then becomes gift to the many lives in our broken and marginalized world.
If Lent then is the best of times, the “worst of times” is what our world is experiencing at this very moment. The total disregard for the lives of the people who have been unjustly fired, families living in fear due to conflicts of war, deportation and re-living the trauma for which they left their countries of origin, while many others are starving because of our greed and lack of compassion.
Pope Francis’ invitation this Lent is to live in the shoes of the poor and marginalized, to feel the fear they experience each day, to live their hunger and homelessness. While deeply touching into their plight, our hearts are turned toward them in radical compassion and standing for justice.
Lent is the best of times for the worst of times in our world.
How are we bringing about change in our own lives to bring about change in a broken and marginalized world?
Sr. Barb Smith, ASC
