Repent, and Believe in the Gospel

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Sometimes our communities are close at hand. We live in them. Worship in them. Share food and conversation and life with them day by day. Sometimes our communities are with people who live far from us. We are united in spirit and prayer, love and commitment to a common journey.

Today, Ash Wednesday, I celebrated the beginning of Lent, not with my physically close community, but with the long distance community of some fellow pilgrims. It hadn’t been planned. It just happened.

A phone call from a missionary friend who lives in Guatemala, ran longer than expected. The conversation about being faithful to the call of writing as we move along on our pilgrimage through life needed to be finished. I made the decision to celebrate the start of the season with her, instead.

With her and with a few others. One friend I met while we were both taking summer courses at St. John’e School of Theology. Divorce, illness, job searches, a move, a wedding…the stuff of life and faith shared together for years. Her PhD dissertation was on liturgical use of Lament. Her insights have supported me through the years even though we have visited in person at her island home  only once since our classes. I slid two articles about the spiritual journey into an envelope addressed to her. We’ll read and talk about them as her health allows.

I began reading today from the book “A Season for the Spirit:Readings for the Days of Lent'” by Martin L. Smith, a gift from a woman who lives in St. Louis. Both taking a spiritual guidance program from Shalem, we’ve been in touch since our first residency last year. “A Season for the Spirit” has been a fruitful guide for her in a few Lents over the years. We are praying though it together this year.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen

Despite feeling good about beginning Lent with these fellow travelers, I missed receiving ashes with a community. I looked above my prayer table and saw the palm cross from last Palm Sunday, given to me by a friend in my parish. Taking it down, I cut it into pieces, placed it in an aluminum pan and walked outside. I put the pan in the snow and lit the palms, turning them into ashes. Coming back inside, I placed the ashes in one of my mother’s small salt dishes, lit a candle, read today’s readings, and then blessed the ashes with the words from the liturgy. After pushing my thumb into the burnt palm, I prayed the short prayer that accompanies the ritual and made the sign of the cross with ashes on my forehead..

One with believers around the world, with those in my parish and city, and with my community of pilgrims around the world, I prayed: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” With their help, and the breath of the Spirit, I will.