Dear Friends,

One of my former colleagues recently shared this writing from Sister Dianne Bergant, CSA (a Biblical scholar and one of the colleague’s former professors):

“We enter Lent this year sobered by world events. The horrors and inhumanity of terrorism and war have embittered our spirits; the devastation of natural catastrophes has seared our hearts. We have been forced to face our own human failings and the vulnerability of humankind generally.”

My friend was not surprised that Sister Dianne so eloquently and succinctly captured precisely what he and many of his friends and family were thinking as they were entering Lent 2025. What completely befuddled him was noticing the date the words were written: February 7, 2005—20 years ago. He reflected on the fact that there have been 20 Lent seasons since then, surrounded by acts of terrorism, war, violence, oppression, discrimination, poverty, and pain.

As you read Sister Dianne’s words, you may be thinking that this year, more than ever, her words describe the state of your heart, given the fact that many currently in positions of power and prestige are using their power and prestige not for the good of those most in need, but seemingly to strike at the heart of that which has been put in place to protect the most vulnerable in our society: the poor, the elderly, the disenfranchised, and those who live on the margins.

The sad fact is that the words that were true 20 years ago are true now, and were true, for each of the years in between. That they are true is because we have not loved God, nor have we loved our neighbors as ourselves. Our Christian tradition calls our failure to do so “sin,” a word that’s been unpopular at least since the psychiatrist Dr. Karl Menninger wrote his classic book Whatever Became of Sin? back in 1973.

Lent is typically a time when people examine their personal lives, and then, having discovered things that need to be changed, ask God’s help to amend their lives in hopes of being less angry, or more patient, or less distracted by their cell phones. (Guilty as charged!) This way of keeping a holy Lent is a fine thing, and I am all for it.

But Lent is also a time to look beyond our personal shortcomings and find ways to keep the baptismal promises to persevere in resisting evil on a much larger scale, and, when we do fall into sin, to repent and return to the Lord. We all participate in social, economic, and political systems that corrupt and destroy God’s creatures, especially our fellow human beings.

It is undoubtedly harder to address “systemic” sins (the ones that lie behind the fact that 184 million people were on the move as migrants around the world this past year, driven by economic forces, conflict, oppression, and violence). But that doesn’t mean we should do nothing. When Jesus said, “the poor you will always have with you,” he wasn’t giving us an excuse for inaction. He was urging us to redouble our efforts to feed the hungry and also address the root causes of hunger: greed, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, climate change, etc.

What words will describe the state of affairs when Lent begins in 2045, 20 years from now? I hope and pray the words will be different.

Blessings,

Stephen Applegate