Bairbre Cahill
Does it seem odd to say I am enjoying Lent? We often think of Lent as an austere time when we are challenged to pray, fast and give alms. The image of sackcloth and ashes may not be far from our minds.
It is true that Lent can be difficult. I am struggling without my usual caffeine to refuel me. More than that though, I am aware of Lent as a journey laced with simple acts of love.
I was working recently on days of retreat with groups of fifth and sixth class students who are preparing for their Confirmation. They were all off something for Lent, from chocolate to YouTube to pizza.
What really impressed me though was what these children were taking up for Lent. Some were helping more around the house. Others were trying not to fight with brothers and sisters. Some were visiting grandparents more regularly and, importantly, spending their time talking to their grannies and granddads rather than playing on their phones!
Others were taking more time to pray every day. The positive impact these children’s Lenten practices were having really struck me. We talked about how wonderful it was that Lent was helping them to bring love and happiness into the lives of the people around them. In a very real way these children are being Good News for others through simple acts of love.
As a young adult I struggled with the language of sacrifice. To speak of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross seemed to me to suggest an image of God the Father as an angry, vengeful God whose wrath had to be subdued with a blood sacrifice.
That clashed hugely with my image of God. I had read enough Seamus Heaney poems about Tollund Man and the Bog Queen to know something of human sacrifice. I had grown up in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles where human life was sacrificed on a regular basis. And so to speak of Jesus’ death on the cross in terms of sacrifice seemed wrong.
It took time for me to realise the deeper meaning and how appropriate it is to speak of sacrifice. The cross is about sacrifice, not because God demands a pound of flesh but because it is Jesus himself who hands over his life. It is an act of utter and complete love. It is love that prompts Jesus to remove his robe and kneel down to wash the dusty, calloused feet of his friends.
It is love that empowers Jesus to place himself utterly in the hands of those mixed up, anxious friends at the Last Supper. It is love that gives him strength to go beyond his own fear in the Garden of Gethsemane. Love is his purpose and his reason.
And so he allows himself to be taken, condemned and crucified. Jesus is not a passive victim. He hands over, sacrifices his own life to proclaim that nothing is stronger than God’s love, not even death.
What began the change in my understanding of the depth and complexity of sacrifice? I think it was the experience of being a parent. There is something about parenthood that demands a depth of loving and giving that we could never before have contemplated.
It is there in the big moments but it is there too in all the small, daily, unnoticed acts of love. Every parent has known those days when they feel they have nothing more to give – and yet somehow they keep giving. Parents, tired and stressed from the busyness of life, have sat up at night with sick children or waiting for sociable young adults to come home in the small hours of the morning. Parents have scraped and saved to educate their children. The motivating force behind it all is love, love that challenges, that costs, that demands more of us.
So those fifth- and sixth-class children with their simple acts of love remind me that Lent is an invitation to love more. It is in our loving that we will glimpse what the cross – even amidst thorns and nails – is truly about.