"The last year seemed to many of us a perpetual Lent."
"The last year seemed to many of us a perpetual Lent."
I am going to die.
That is what the ashes strewn on my head on Ash Wednesday means. But that is what these months of the coronavirus pandemic have over and over again reminded me. That one day I will have to come to terms with my mortality.
In the last 12 months, I can count more than 20 people personally close to me—family, friends, relatives, and colleagues—who have died, many without the comforting rituals of mourning and grief.
“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Never had these words struck me with their starkness—of how there will be a time before our birth, and a time long after death. The truth that, as the Scriptures say, “there is a time to be born, and a time to die (Ecclesiastes 3:2)” is same for all of us.
Lent begins with the imposition of ashes, a striking reminder of our own fragile existence—a reality which we have faced these past months. The last year has been one of loss. Many have lost their money, others even their jobs. We have gone through a year without hugs and handshakes. Schools, businesses and churches have closed down while hospitals have been operating beyond their capacity. Some have suffered illness from the infection. Many displaced from their familiar routines and others isolated for weeks in their homes.
The last year seemed to many of us a perpetual Lent—during which we patiently wait for what seems to be an elusive time for society to resurrect itself once more.
This season of Lent confronts us with an even more important question, “Knowing that one day you will die, how do you want to live?”
Our traditional Lenten observances have been marked by prayer, penance and purification, and it is no surprise that we have associated it with suffering and death—realities that we have come face to face in many ways during this pandemic.
Suffering and death, however, also point out to us the opposite reality of life. While we may have to die one day, however today, we live. This is what the words tell us, “Believe in the Gospel.” These words powerfully remind us that hope is on the horizon.
This pandemic has claimed more than 2 million lives worldwide, and in that context, death has become unusually too redundant, to a point that it does not give us the same horror that it used to.
The more frightening prospect for some, it seems, is that we will have to continue to live, amidst the recurring adversity and lingering uncertainty. Confronted with the experience of death like never before, a question more worth asking is how we will continue living our lives in the coming months and years.
We all have to keep wearing masks and observing physical distancing in order to save lives. We have to starve profit from our businesses or adapt to the new normal of doing things—in order to keep living. In a way, our daily lives and routines have been shaped by the power of death in more obvious ways than many of us have ever experienced.
Death is far from being a problem to be solved; rather, it is a mystery to be endured. These days, as we are thrust too often into this towering and terrible truth that death is all around us and coming for each of us, Lent reminds us that while death awaits us, despair is not inevitable.
Saint Benedict in his Rule reminds his monks to “day by day remind yourself that you are going to die.” But in doing so, he taught them to accept the reality of their mortality in order for them to avoid the senseless task of living merely to keep themselves alive but instead live a life of purpose.
This year has both taken a toll on us and – hopefully – given us new insights into what is important, what can be let go and what is essential. That is why in embracing the fragility of our own existence, we turn to things that really matter, asking ourselves, “Who are we, and what is our life for?”
In our acts of penance, we invited to examine our life’s purpose, without the distractions that come from the fleeting pleasures of this world. In our almsgiving, we are challenged to build a society that is shaped by meeting our needs and not feeding our greed. In our prayer, we are asked to remember that in the end, God alone, is in control.
While Lent begins with a simple reminder that we will die, it must end with a stronger resolve in us to live more meaningful lives.
Let this Lent remind us, that in the midst of our own pain and suffering, our hope endures.