Happy 2nd Lenten Sunday! How was the first week of Lent for you, did you survive? Thrive? Trip up or leap forward? Did life feel the same or different? Let’s keep pushing ourselves, we’re one lap in. And whilst we’re all praying for the arrival of spring weather (I finally took down my Christmas lights on the house to help the cause), the change of season coincides with the traditional arrival of spring cleaning. De-cluttering your environment. For me, the experience of Lent very often comes down to Jesus helping me simplify. Shrug off the unneeded burdens, get rid of the distractions, reset the soul. We put in the holy work because we’ve got simpler, better lives ahead of us.
Healing For All the Wayfarers Out There
Stretch your brains with me and go back seven weeks. We wrote in this column about what healing is and who it’s for. Big-H Healing in its broadest sense, we said, is synonymous with holiness. It is the whole process that refashions a human being by transforming us into the saints we were created to be. More recently, we learned that little-h healing in its stricter sense is one of the main levers in that transformation (together with building and sending) which functions by stitching together our wounded and broken parts, and by surgically excising the foreign agents within us that don’t belong (what this bulletin series will cover). Healing in all its aspects, we’ve concluded, belongs to the wayfarer, which would be anyone not currently in heaven or hell.
Ok, good. Let me connect that last piece to Lent. As pastor, I am entrusted with tending to our vineyard of wayfaring souls, among whom are also our brothers and sisters passed from this life and still completing their journey to heaven. Like us, they are not in heaven or hell, and the healing they still require, which transpires between earthly life and heavenly life, we call purgatory. By God’s mysterious design, their purification is “passive”, meaning souls in purgatory depend completely on the intercession of heaven and earth to make it home. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving for the holy souls in purgatory are wonderful Lenten disciplines of healing, especially if you’re still struggling with “what to do” for Lent. Do that. For the next five weeks, pray daily for the dead, offer your weekly fast for their healing, give some alms for their sanctification. Learning to faithfully care for our wayfaring souls includes choosing to faithfully care for theirs.
For my part, I celebrate Mass daily for the spiritual care of all your loved ones, many of whom are among the beloved dead. As Catholics we have a venerable and ancient history of praying for the dead through the Sacrifice of the Mass. It is part of your Christian inheritance. You may always participate in this intercessory healing tradition by scheduling a specific intention with our parish office for any wayfarers, living or deceased, whom God has committed to your love.
Fr. Brian