March often enters like a lion and exits like a lamb, for it is the month in which winter officially turns to spring.  The transition is played out as atmospheric pressures and gravitational pulls bring forth weather that vacillates between cold and warmth while air can gust into strong winds or burst into storms.  As if a meteorological wrestling match is taking place in nature, it is mirrored by the annual season of Lent which encourages Christians in the same month to pay attention to similar spiritual skirmishes that take place in our soul.

We can—and probably should—expand the grappling beyond the interior soul to our exterior religion, nation, and world as they endure related battles.  As Pope Francis once stated: “Lent invites us to admit that something inside us is not well, that something in our society and church is not well.  God invites us to change, to turn around, to be converted.”  Many people wrestle with religion because it seems to house hypocrisy, bigotry, and self-righteousness.  We eagerly point out the damaging fact that millions of people throughout history have killed one another in the name of God.  And, as the A. A. (Alcoholics Anonymous) Manual expresses, “In proclaiming the sins of some religious people, we try to feel superior to all religious people.  In feeling superior, we avoid looking at our own shortcomings so that the very thing we contemptuously despise in others—self-righteousness—turns out to be our own indwelling evil.”  Lent calls us to examine both personal and institutional self-righteousness.

The Catholic Church wrestles with being judgmental and condemnatory.  Neither pretentious or naïve in dealing with tensions and mysteries that do not have clear answers, leaders grapple with these things.  For example, the church condemns abortion as murder but will readily forgive those who aborted a baby; officials eagerly counsel and embrace them, especially when they cannot forgive themselves.  For example, the church denounces divorce and remarriage yet quickly welcomes divorced people and seeks to restore their ecclesial ties, acknowledging the misery they endured and applauding their willingness to stay with the church through and beyond their ordeal.  For example, the church decries homosexual acts but realizes that people are wired differently, that all are created in the image and likeness of God, and that all are loved by God.  Though leaders don’t have every answer, good leaders have clear vision, a solid road map, and a willingness to grapple with tough issues.  As Jesus challenged church leaders of His time, calling them hypocrites and blind guides, so do we need to examine ourselves and our institution’s own indwelling evil.

Lent helps us do that through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  We don’t just abstain or fast from bad food or drink but also from bad attitudes and actions, bad habits and patterns, bad words and behaviors.  Praying is not only about strengthening our private relationship with God and our private morality but also about communal prayer and transferring our moral code of conduct to daily interactions that help shape our society.  Almsgiving is not just about social charity but also social justice: getting right with others, with God, and with self, while, at the same time, encouraging others to do the same.  These three hallmarks of the season bring J-O-Y to our three most important relationships: with Jesus (through prayer), with Others (almsgiving) and with Yourself (fasting).  JOY awaits us on the other side of the wrestling match.

As the battles play out between winter and spring, cold and warmth, darkness and light, storms and calm, death and new life, we seek to arrive at a better tempered place.  During Lent, through deeper prayer, efforts of fasting and abstaining, and more conscientious charitable outreach to those who suffer, we engage in a similar trek to a better spiritual place.  Please pray for the church which also strives to arrive at a better religious place and to restore confidence in people who think of us as more hypocritical than compassionate, more condemning than welcoming, more self-righteous than embracing to all God’s children.  All are welcome, yet all have work to do.  March’s madness and Lent’s longing provide us with a good opportunity to grapple over these important issues in hopes that we become better people who are part of a better church.