On this cold, grim day, we entertain ourselves with a picture of 
the Barnes Arboretum in the Easter season of 2013.   But first: Lent

ASH WEDNESDAY, 2026   SJU CHAPEL   5 PM  Attendance of approximately 450 students and staff

The word Lent, as many of you know, comes from the same Old English source for the word “lengthen” referring, of course, to the lengthening of days in the spring.   And since here in the northern hemisphere we celebrate Easter in the Spring we also call the penitential season preceding it with a word that reminds us of the lengthening of our days, “Lent”.   Related to this season of longer days, of course, is the new life generated by the renewed warmth of our temperate climate.   New life will be all around us by Easter Sunday, April 5 this year.  On just about that April date, in 2023 I took a beautiful picture of the flowering trees in the Barnes Arboretum on a blue-sky day.   I know it is hard to imagine all this as we snuggle together on this chilly, dreary day but just so it is sometimes difficult to imagine also joining our Jesus in the resurrection.    A desire for our Lenten season, then:  let us get to know this sufffering Jesus who rises from the dead.   Let us ask him to help us serve his desires in our world so that we may live with him.

 

Lent calls us to simplify our lives.   There is nothing complicated about the pratices to which the season calls us: extending our prayers and our acts of charity, and fasting not simply in the traditional way of food consumption but also in other ways; fasting from impatience and gossip, from arrogance and hardheartedness, fasting from skepticism about God’s abundant grace.

 

Now: a little story

Second:  suggestions for prayer and fasting

And Finally:  A particular activity suited to this Lent in 2026

 

My first experience of fasting was not the Lenten fast but the rigorous Eucharistic fast which ended after my childhood years.   During my childhood the Church required that everyone fast from food and even water from midnight to prepare to receive Holy Communion at the morning Mass.   I recall that fast one Easter when I was about eight years old, the first Easter after I had made my First Communion.   With my family I was preparing to leave our home to go to Easter morning Mass.  Breakfast of course would follow after Mass.  But when brushing my teeth I thoughtlessly took a drink of water.    Well, I broke the Eucharistic fast.   No Easter communion for me.   At Mass I sat with my family in the same pew.   They all got up and went to communion and I sat by myself embarrassed thinking that the rest of the congregation considered me a sinner.   I was sure they thought I had done something like beaten my little sister or tried to run away from home.   My parents, later in our lives together, would have counseled me to go to communion anyway but, when I was young, they were careful with rules.

 

Back to, shall we say, the rules of Lent.  And the recommended actions.

We enter Lent with a desire to become a friend of the Lord Jesus and to accompany him as he goes to his death.  Yes, it is a challenge to understand who this man Jesus is and who is the Father that moves him to such love for us.

 

But the instructions for Lent that help us are very simple.

Set aside some time to pray each day.  A sitting prayer.   A walking prayer.  The rosary.   The psalms of the liturgical office.   A song.   The Internet is filled with guidance.   I suggest that you find a practice and stick with it for all of Lent.   My choice will be the gospel readings each day.   Give them each day a thoughtful reading and talk with the Jesus who is present in them.

 

And as far as fasting is concerned, We can surely simplify our diets while maintaining our energy.  But further let’s take some of the time, talent and treasure that we use for ourselves and devote these personal riches to the needs others.   We can make life easier for the family and friends with whom we live or work by taking on some extra duties in the household or by reaching out to a brother or sister in need.

 

These gestures over the forty days of Lent open us to a more complete practice of the gospel day in and day out all year.   Love for and with the poor.  Selling what we have.   Compassion, Humility and even a solidarity with others of all descriptions who work for what is just and peaceful.

 

And in particular this year 2026, a public solidarity.   This Lent in particular Catholics around the nation are responding to the inhuman aggressive efforts by ICE to arrest residents here who are not officially citizens.  The results are families broken up and parents taken from their children.   So many in this country are afraid to live freely according to the rules assigned for those seeking asylum or those offered other special status to enter the country.   In response to this, a nationwide collection of Catholic organizations has declared this Lent and Easter to be a Season of Faithful Witness.    Prayers and processions in public spaces will highlight the crucial need for the country to offer our immigrants pathways to citizenship.    All of us are called to take part in some way.   Even today at noontime some University students with many others took part in an Ash Wednesday faithful witness at the ICE office downtown.   That witness will continue to take place every Wednesday at Noon.

 

But all of us should take heart:   Remember one thing within these practices of Lent: When I was eight years old and hardly knew what I was doing, I was already a member of a family and a congregation and I was called to follow Christ.   So I learned from an early age: we do not follow Christ as individuals.  We follow Christ as a community of disciples, men and women.  We clarify the gospel by studying it together and by practicing it together. 

 

So now together we celebrate the Lord with us around the common shared table of the Eucharist.  We walk together in our desire to follow Jesus, discerning what is right in solidarity, together in our suffering and in our rejoicing.     Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ, King of Endless Glory.