Business - As - Usual by Sr. Cindy Burns

On Ash Wednesday of this year, as the universal Church, and I, prepared to observe the season of Lent, I heard many familiar phrases that described the season and the traditional practices that usually mark it. Expressions like, “fasting and abstinence” and “the Lenten springtime,” called us to penance and inner conversion. Everyone in the Church began to search their hearts to decide what form of sacrifice they would offer. Those involved in the Christian Initiation of Adults began the “Period of Purification and Enlightenment” – the intense time of final preparation for the Easter Sacraments. All of these things have crossed my mind this year and every year of my life as a Roman Catholic. However, a few years ago, I began to hear a new phrase that stood out above the rest. I heard that Lent was not supposed to be “business-as-usual.”

As I pondered this new idea about Lent, it began to make perfect sense. There are many examples in the Scripture where matters are definitely not “business-as-usual.” The readings of Ash Wednesday called us to the season of Lent with hope that people would have a change of heart, that God would change the anticipated time of gloom into a time of blessing. Many New Testament accounts demonstrate that Jesus Christ was one who was definitely not “business-as-usual.” To those who were outcast from society, branded as sinners, the sick, the blind and the lame, Jesus showed not judgment, but he broke through the barriers of the way things had always been done, in order to show his new order of love and forgiveness. Ultimately, Jesus died on the cross, forgiving those who had brought that tragedy about.

As Lent 2010draws to a close and Easter fast approaches, and may indeed already be here, as you read this, new thoughts about “business-as-usual” sneak across my mind. Perhaps Lent was not usual for you. Perhaps the time flew by and Lenten resolve was abandoned, bringing feelings of failure, of “wasting” this special time. Perhaps other issues of life got in the way and sacrifices planned gave way to the unexpected sacrifices that life brings: sickness, friends or relatives dying, financial problems. The people of Haiti are struggling to find a new normal in the aftermath of January’s tremendous earthquake. Likewise, inhabitants of Chile and the Philippines deal with recovery from nature’s trembling.

For all Christians who have been saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, life is no longer “business-as-usual.” We know that our salvation has been won by the most extraordinary of circumstances. The overwhelming darkness of sin is diminished in the brilliant light of our Savior. The power of Jesus’ love, enacted in his sacrifice on Good Friday, brings the assurance of eternal life made a reality on Easter morning.

Oh, and one more thing…Lent is a calendar time. However, conversion is a heart time that knows no calendar time. This year I have the feeling growing in me that “business-as-usual” for Lent means beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Holy Thursday. Not so, my friends, not so. Like the call to make Christmas live in our hearts all year long, the call to inner conversion, prayer, sacrifice and almsgiving is whispered in our ears all year. We are called to live out the challenge to “Love one another as I have loved you.” This challenge is given to us by the Christ who did the unexpected, by the God who is unpredictable, the God who loves us in a way that is anything but “business-as-usual.”