Lent offers Opportunity for Conversion

White petunias in bloom.

While much of the United States is still experiencing freezing temperatures and winter snow, Northeast Florida is starting to have temperatures in the 80s. The snowbirds in Florida are often those from colder climes. Our winter annuals like petunias and white sweet alyssum are still in bloom in the Motherhouse gardens, even as the azaleas are beginning to flower, which is usually a sign of spring here.

On Wednesday, March 2nd, Ash Wednesday, the liturgical season of Lent begins in the Catholic Church. Lent is the 40-day penitential period preceding the feast of Easter, when we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The English word Lent is a shortened form of the Old English word lencten, meaning “spring season.” The word Lent was much easier for people to remember and say than the Latin word for Lent - quadragesima, which means the 40 days. According to the Catholic website Aletia.org, “Lent is generally seen as a time of spiritual renewal, a type of “spiritual spring,” when a soul is renewed in fervor and cleansed of all impurities.”

Close up of white sweet alyssum in bloom. 

In December, just two months ago, the Council of our Congregation, which is its leadership team, signed off on a commitment to a seven year process being implemented by the Vatican Dicastery for Integral Human Development called the Laudato Si’ Action Platform. This global effort by the Vatican is a follow-up from Pope Francis’ 2015 papal encyclical entitled Laudato Si’, which dealt with care for the earth, our common home. The Vatican is asking Catholic parishes, dioceses, schools and colleges, and health care institutions to join in this global effort towards sustainability and integral ecology. Pope Francis challenged all of us to hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

Azaleas in bloom. 

Our Congregation’s public commitment to the Laudato Si’ Action Platform included the following statements:

“Through on-going spiritual formation and discernment, we seek to foster among ourselves and our Dear Neighbors the ecological conversion needed to build a mutually beneficial relationship between humans and our fragile planet, in order to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future.

We make this commitment in faith, hope and love, knowing that we are participating in God’s work of transformation, “for we know that things can change.” (Laudato Si’ 13)”

Lent and spring are both times of change. Dormant plants and trees develop green leaves. Grass begins to turn green. We are being challenged each Lent to change, to conversion in some form in our life so that we can grow closer in relationship to God and our Dear Neighbor. There are many ways to change behaviors to help the earth and the poor. Even one small change this spring, this Lent, can help make a difference.