Three Reasons Why You Need Lent This Year: To Pray to God, to Unite to Christ, and to Sanctify Friends

Sobbing.  As I walked down the aisle of the Shrine church, I heard it.  It was time to close the Church.  I was tired.  I had three services of over 1,000 people, all praying to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal and with a sermon from me.  Sobbing.  It was coming from the lone woman in the back pew.  I walked back to her and sat beside her.  “Can I help?”  Paltry words from an empty barrel. She turned to me.  “My third son was just shot to death, like my other two sons.” And her tears stopped all talk.  I was struck dumb as she fell into my arms.  I could not speak. Just tears started, and I felt myself being overtaken by her grief.

What kind of God are you?   Why do I worship you?  My anger, of course, is trying to protect me.  But to no avail.  The tears flowed.  However, after twenty years of serving Mary, I knew immediately what to do.  Mary takes words away from me when she wants to speak. “Come with me,” I told her.  I held her hand and led her out of the pew. We went to the side shrine of our Lady of Sorrows, where a life-size statue of the Pieta stood, surrounded by lit candles.  I told her, “Here, sit here and tell her your grief.  She, too, had a son who was senselessly killed.  Murdered by people who mocked him, beat him, and then crucified him.

She, too, holds all that is left.  She, too, is full of broken love that cannot be comforted.  She is like you.  Tell her and listen to her.  Let her speak love to you.”  I gave her tissues, and she looked swayed.  She wanted to be alone with her mother.  I came back in about an hour or so.  She was gone.  I had no name, no address.  But there it was on the chair—a white rose.  There were no flowers in the church, especially not roses. But I knew immediately.  Mary was now caring for her.  I placed the rose on the Pieta.  What a great gift we have to be able to take people to God and Mary.  Thank you, Mary.  Merci, Marie!

In all my priesthood’s forty-five-plus years of serving, this story is one that I will never forget.  It is a story about a person that God sent into my life.   She always moves me to cry, to pray, and to love God who gave me this moment.  It is more than a story because, in some divine way, it is part of the story of me, a person, and the people of my life.

If you think about it, every person that we know was either sent or allowed by God into our lives.  And every person writes a story in our lives.  No one is just there!  Our lives are full of people-stories. We live as a people-story with beginnings and ends, all day long.  As soon as I think or say, “How are you?” or “How are you doing?” I’ve started a story with someone. 

People-stories can be big ones, long ones, and short ones.  There are happy ones, sad ones, tragic ones, boring ones, and annoying ones.  Some stories are mine, and some, I observe, are yours.  Some stories are painful, and some make us happy.  Some stories are about people we love, and some are about strangers.

Yes, we have people stories about those we do not like and those who have hurt us.  They are sometimes the most complex stories to carry.  We also have people-stories about Jesus Christ.  He is a person, and our actions with Him create stories of love and petition.

People-stories are the stuff of life.  When we die, we give God all our stories and the people in them.  We find out that God was with us in every one of them.

God started this people-story arrangement.  The Bible begins with a story – the Story of Creation, including the story of the creation of man and woman.  God reveals himself to us always in a story.  The Christmas story is immortal.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn 1:1).

Stories are made up of words – from us and others.  The words tell the story of love or hate, and all degrees in between.  Most words are from us, some are Godly, some are from people, but all are written/remembered by us.  We hold all our stories and their words. Little do we think that God is in all of it.  

Sometimes, maybe more often than we want, we are tempted to write our words instead of God’s words. Then the story goes awry, just like Adam and Eve's story did when they wrote with their words.  Then our story tells of wrong decisions, painful consequences, and, hopefully, prodigal returns.

A Lenten Practice: Praying for the People in Your Story

This Lent, let’s pray for all the people in our stories.  Let’s give God a prayer for some (we can never remember all) of the people that He sent or allowed into our lives.  It is the greatest thing that we can do – give our life for another!  

We are giving our prayer life, our time with God, to another, the other person who came into our lives.  By doing this, we practice praying for different people.  We may even start to see God in the people of our lives.  Our Goal is to pray for them.  

It is also a great Lenten sacrifice.  Praying for others makes Lent a gift to others.  It also makes Lent a time of prayer to God, a time to become a better me, and a time of preparation for the Holy Days of the Paschal Mystery.

Here is how we can do this in ten minutes or less.  Get a rosary.  Hold on to the crucifix.  Start, as always, by blessing yourself.  Think of a person you want to pray for, e.g., Mom.  Then say, “I put Mom on the cross of Jesus Christ our Savior.”  Then say the First Mystery of the Rosary for that day, e.g., Monday, The Annunciation.  Then move to the first bead and say the Our Father.  Move to the next three beads and say their Hail Marys.  Then move to the final bead, and say the Glory be…  Then go back to the Cross and say, “I put Mom on the Cross of Jesus Christ our Savior.”  Next Mystery, The Visitation, first bead, Our Father, next three beads Hail Mary’s, etc.  You can use (pray for) more than one name.

The whole process uses only the beginning part of the rosary.  I call this a “Minute Rosary.”  I say it many times throughout the day when I do not have time for a whole rosary.  Of course, God, Christ, and Mary like it because it is prayer.

Some people may bring dislike or pain.  We are here to pray for the person.  We are not praying for the story.  You cannot pray for a story anyway.  If someone brings pain and a story, immediately ask Mary to take it away.  It is the evil one who is trying to keep you from praying for the person.  Just the name of Mary drives the evil away.  It never fails.  Try it.

Put the painful person on the Cross of Jesus Christ, our Savior, and get on with the Our Father.  You are praying for the person, period.  Get rid of all the “stuff” around the person.  This is YOUR Lenten practice, not a psychology session.  

How can we remember people in our lives?  People are attached to the stories we usually remember about anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter.  Many categories will recall stories of your life.  In every story, there are people.  Pull them out of the story and put them on the Cross of Jesus Christ, our Savior.  Your goal is to pray for people, not remember every story or every person in your life! 

There are many ways to do this. Here is a suggested way to organize this around event-stories and their people.  For the six weeks of Lent, Monday to Friday, take a different category of people and/or an event.  

• Week one – parents and/or Christmas. 

• Week two – siblings and/or grade school, and high school. 

• Week three – relatives – aunts, uncles, grandparents, and/or Thanksgiving.

• Week four – friends, neighbors, and/or Easter. 

• Week five – people at work and vacations, supermarket, barber, etc.

• Week six – Church, God, Mary, and anniversaries. 

Use the same mysteries that are usually assigned for each day. Wednesday – Glorious Mysteries; Monday – Joyful Mysteries; Tuesday and Friday – Sorrowful Mysteries; and Thursday – Luminous Mysteries.

There is one further thing to help us.  I took the sobbing woman to Mary.  I want you to go to Mary, too!

Why Mary?  Because NO ONE GOES TO THE CROSS ALONE!  Jesus Christ had Mary there when he went to the Cross.  We go to the Cross as a baptized member of the risen and glorified Body of Christ.  We stand with each other.  She ALWAYS stands at the foot of the Cross, and always with you.  

Mary’s role in our salvation is critical.  At the Wedding Feast of Cana, Mary knew it was time and, in the name of the world, asked Jesus to begin his preaching and give us the wine of everlasting life.  She knows and is not afraid to speak to God.  She did God a big favor.  God never says no to her.

The goal and practice of every Spiritual life is to be her fiat, “Let it be done unto me according to your word,” to become a vessel for God's love in the world. She is the universal, the one in whom all can unite, the one in everyone’s story!  To say and use her rosary is to be with her every day this Lent.  Enjoy the glory.

Trusting God's Providence: When We Don't Understand His Plan

Finally, let’s use my anger toward God, upon meeting the sobbing woman, as an example to help us.  “What kind of God are you that violently takes 3 sons from a mother?”  We often question God when we do not understand.  I firmly believe what our faith tells us: God is the eternal act of Love and Good.

God does allow evil in the world because humanity wanted it when Adam and Eve chose it over good.  God never violates freedom.  BUT God revealed in the Resurrection, that He ALWAYS overcomes evil with good – Always.  God, in his providence and power, orders all things and actions to their proper end and good.  God does this for His maximum glory and our maximum good.  I never stop praying for that woman!

Here is an example from the Bible. A woman bled for 12 years, as stated in the Gospels.  God could have cured her at any time and in any place.  But God, allowing her long-suffering, put her in that exact place and at that exact time to be cured by Christ. God wrote this in all three Synoptic Gospels so that, for over 2000 years, billions of people would hear that story multiple times and come to grow in their faith in God’s healing love for them. God’s maximum glory, her maximum good! (albeit we didn’t know her name either).

May this Lent help you pray to God, unite to Christ, and sanctify your friends – for your maximum good and His maximum glory.  And remember, you have not given up chocolate! Amen.