The Lent That Wasn’t (Or Always Was?)

What I learned from the most annoying night on pilgrimage (and the past 12 months)

I slid my muddy backpack off my weary shoulders, unlaced my hiking boots to free my blistered feet, and rolled out my sleeping bag. That’s when it hit me.

Sleeping on the floor of a medieval church sounded way cooler in theory.

Especially when the country parish was crammed with one hundred other sweaty, muddy, tired young adults who’d spent the day hiking to Je-Ne-Sais-Pas-Où, Middle-of-France.

But I had grit! I had energy! I was 22! Starry-eyed and convinced by my French roommates that this pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres was the quintessential Lent experience.

So off we went and here we crashed—on the cold stone floor of a cold stone church.

I tried to be a Good Sport, mustering all my American gumption. When I realized that I’d rolled out my sleeping bag underneath a statue of Mary, I reassured myself that under this Watchful Maternal Gaze I’d surely get some rest.

Except a room full of 100 people sleeping is also a room full of 100 people snoring.

Puffs and grumbles, whistles and growls, bellows rising and falling for hours and hours eternal, Amen.

I laid awake stewing, not sleeping, while my ankles throbbed and my back ached and my pathetic attempts at prayer dissolved into bitter hurls of I AM TIRED THIS WAS STUPID WHY DON’T YOU JUST HELP ME FALL ASLEEP.

Exactly the moment I realized: this was the same truth I’d come seeking.

That Lent is long and humbling. That humanity (ours + others’) makes it harder along the way. That this season is not defined by our lofty ideals, but by God who shows up in surprising places.

I tossed and turned in 20-minute snatches that fitful night, annoyed by myself and friends and strangers and every chorus of echoing snores off stone walls. But the next morning after I packed up my bag and laced up my boots, I realized I was carrying something new.

A permanent memory of Lent’s truth, carved in stone.

True confession: this year, Lent never got going for me. I tried but failed.

I couldn’t kick-start a season of fasting when we already felt deprived of so much: community, gathering, physical touch. I couldn’t muster any energy for extra discipline while struggling to stay afloat with life’s basic demands.

I knew this was a Lent for going slow and staying gentle. But I’ve felt for four long weeks now like Lent never got started—because it was already underway.

The past year has felt like sleeping on a hard stone floor after a long day’s hike. So many of us are worn out and worn thin, and if one more person around us seems to be relaxing like life’s picture-perfect, we are going to lose it.

But here’s the truth about Lent. This is precisely the point. Our own need and lack and flaws and humanity are exactly where God’s gifts and love and mercy and divinity are waiting to meet us.

Whether your Lent has felt year-long or never-started, we are going to meet the same Jesus in Holy Week: the one who offered himself in love to me and you and every snoring soul around us.

It moves me to tears (and not just because our current baby’s terrible sleep habits are eerily reminiscent of that night). Lent—and the Christian life—never depends on us in the first place. Whether we rise or whether we fall, we are held by the God of love unimaginable and goodness abounding.

Lent was only ever a pilgrimage back to that Love.

So wherever you are today, with one last long week to go before the holiest days dawn again, let yourself receive the gift of gentleness, generous and true. Yes, we are called to try and change and give and serve. But no, it never depends on us.

This pilgrimage holds sun-soaked days of arrival, pilgrims shouting and singing on cathedral steps, and dark-clouded nights of fitful sleep, fearing we’ll never get there.

God holds it all.

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For Your Easter Baskets

Shall we pivot to Easter planning, pretending we glimpse the dawn of death-destroyed and new-life-rising on the horizon? Shipping times say we must. Methinks you are unsurprised that my Easter gifts fall into two categories: Books / Not Books.

BOOKS

Katie Bogner's book Through the Year with Jesus: Gospel Readings and Reflections for Children is full of beautiful art and simple ideas to celebrate each Sunday of the liturgical year. I adore it.

This liturgical colors board book is perfect for littles (and those of us who love Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, too).

Katie Warner's latest book—Listening for God: Silence Practice for Little Ones—is delightful. If you love the story of Elijah and the still small voice, or if you’re a fan of making Montessori silence, or if you simply love QUIET, this is for you.  

I picked up my friend Nancy’s board book on Black Catholics and her Family Examen book (Jen Olson’s art is too lovely to miss).

Drawing God is one of my favorite new kids’ books about imagining God. (Check out their free Lent resources, too.) Author Karen Kiefer has generously offered a copy for one of you! Simply click reply to this email and let me know you’d like to be entered in the giveaway and I’ll draw a winner on Monday, March 22nd.

Want to get yourself an Easter gift? WHY NOT. My book Risen: 50 Ways to Live Easter walks you through Scripture, prayer, and reflection for 50 days of the Easter season. Or check out this crazy deal ($2.99?!) on my friend Timothy’s beautiful collection Pocket Prayers for Times of Trouble.

NOT-BOOKS

I asked on Instagram for favorite small shops/accounts to follow, and thanks be to whomever pointed me to Heart of IESVS on Etsy. I snatched up 4 prayer cards for the bigger kids, and the art is so stunning I want to keep them for moi.

Erica’s baby gifts are my favorite, including her Mary & Joseph dolls and the world’s softest muslin quilt. You can get 10% off anything at Be A Heart with code MESSYGRACE10.

Chews Life rosaries have long been our go-to baptism gift, but check out these darling baby shoes that my friend Shannon sent for our wee babe: EMMAUS CRIB SHOES, are you kidding me with the perfect metaphor.

And if anyone has a lead on fair-trade chocolate that kids will actually eat (and doesn’t cost the same as a small car), leave a comment below for the rest of us?

Peace,

Laura

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Find my books here: Everyday Sacrament | Grieving Together | Prayers for Pregnancy & Birth | To Bless Our Callings | Living Your Discipleship

This post contains Amazon affiliate links.