My Most Successful Lent

I haven't decided what to do for Lent this year.  Actually, work has been grinding me down to the fine powder and I'm making a long car trip in a week, so between those two thing, I'm not sure what more penance I can do.

But I was reminded this morning of what I did last year and it was very successful.

There was a certain Religious Sister who works for the diocese who had taught a class I attended who said a series of things that really upset me.  It would be uncharitable for me to dwell on them here, but they were straight out of the 1970's felt-banner era and I was surprised that such generational and cultural biases still existed in the 21st century.

And the more I thought about it, it really made me mad.  I was mad at her, I was mad at the people in her religious order, I was mad at the people who hired her for to teach this class, I was mad at the people who hired them, and I was mad at the local Ordinary.  In short, I was pretty mad and frustrated.  I had been promised that this generation was passing and there'd be a new, orthodox group to take their place Real Soon Now(TM).

I chewed on that anger and nurtured it for several years.

I couldn't remember her name, but I knew that she was some bigwig with the diocese religious order ... organization or whatever it's called.  I had seen her picture on a poster for that organization on the day that she was teaching the class.  A week or so before Lent last year, I was walking around the parish and -- lo and behold! -- that very poster was hanging on the wall with that very Sister's smiling face beaming at me. In a flash of inspiration, I took a picture of it on my phone.

Soon, it occurred to me to pray for her.  I'm not one for symbolic gestures -- I've had too much pop psychology at corporate training events to take it seriously -- but I resolved that I would pray for her every day during Lent, and on Easter I would erase her picture from my phone with the idea that this would erase the anger from my heart.  Since she was all about the NewChurch, I decided that an Our Father, a Hail Mary and St Michael Prayer would be appropriate.

So every day in Lent, I prayed those three prayers for her and for catechists in the diocese, and for those who run that program including the bishop.  That's a lot of work for three little prayers.  But I did it every day.  And on Easter I deleted her picture.

I wish I could say there was a huge cathartic release when I did, but it wasn't like that.  The first week of Lent I felt no difference at all.  I don't know if there was a single point during Lent where she didn't bother me anymore, but by Holy Week, I was pretty much over her.  It did feel good to delete her picture, but I can't really explain why.  I was actually kind of embarrassed by the gesture, and embarrassed that it was necessary. Maybe I was just happy that it was over.

Had I written this post before I did that I'd have spent several paragraphs trashing the woman, including what she said, what she wore and anything else I can think of.  Now, that doesn't seem necessary.

I don't expect this to work for everyone.  People in a continuing relationship wouldn't be able to symbolically delete other people from their lives: new provocations would require them to start over continuously.  But it worked in this case.