Lent is Like a Sorely Needed Nap

Lessons in chocolate fixation, holy rest, and conversion

My daughters and I recently chatted in the kitchen about our Lenten failures. It seems we’ve all been struggling a little…

“I don’t understand it. I didn’t eat this much junk food before Lent when I decided not to eat any junk food.”

We all nodded in agreement, checked the calendar days of failure, and decided that yes, we stink, but the final two weeks of Lent are going to be our best effort. We are going to win Lent and win it big! Then someone said…

"But if we haven’t done it yet, what makes us think we are going to be able to do it now?”

And if there ever was a statement capable of making a woman lunge for the chocolate in despair, that’s the one. Past behavior is best predictor of future behavior, of course. We know we have been bad at this, we’re still bad at it, and perhaps our kitchen hype session is just an exercise in futility. However, I do believe we’ve got two good weeks left in us. With grace and some humility, it isn’t a hopeless case.

Jesus, we’re not actually stronger than chocolate. Help.

Truth be told, I am a little burned out on the Ps and Qs of devotion this Lent. Chocolate fixation is a symptom rather than the cause. I do not mean to say that I’m tired of being Catholic or that I’m tired of Jesus himself…

… only that I am tired.

It’s not complicated. When a person is fatigued or ill for an extended period of time, priorities tend to shift. It’s not that I don’t care about the details of devotion, it’s that I not only want to eat the cookie, but I want ten cookies, a nap that lasts a month, respite from grief, and answers to prayers that are so rooted in fear that I’m disinclined to pray them because that means I have to look at them.

Authentic prayer requires opening the eyes a little. And I’m just tired.

A few years ago, I was very sick. So sick that I thought I’d be completely at peace if I fell asleep and just never woke up. I had no fight left. During my convalescence, I marveled at how swiftly my romantic vision of a slow death (writing letters to children, putting affairs in order, etc) was obliterated by something as base as fatigue.

That experience taught me to not withhold energy when I have it. Not to wait. It also taught me to deeply respect weariness of the body because of the potentially ruinous part it can play in the soul…

I’m done.
I don’t care.
I don’t believe anything.
Just let me sleep.
And give me the chocolate.

Having a crisis of faith? It is shocking to find that sometimes consecutive nights of deep restorative sleep can set things right. Maybe don’t quote me on this, but Lent might be a bit like a sorely needed nap. Perhaps the stripping down of pride and clutter that happens during a fruitful Lent is designed to be rest for the soul, and not burden. In the silence and intimacy with Christ, we are better able to recover innocence and what has been covered over with noise and ego.

The turmoil of Lent comes because I am like a toddler who doesn’t want to put down my toys and give myself over to holy rest. Go ahead, Lord… just try to pry my distractions from my fierce little hands.

The chocolate itself isn’t evil, it’s just in the way—a type of noise—and that’s why we decline it for a time. That’s why in the short time between now and Easter, I have renegotiated with the chocolate and have set it aside again. I’m just going to hang on and ask God to restore the memory and vibrancy of conversion. Metanoia is not something that happened to me once and for all, but is still happening now.

Come, Holy Spirit. Carry my weary self all the way to Easter and beyond. Restore the fervor of conversion.

. . .

Within half a day of writing everything you just read, I saw a random comment on social media from a stranger who said it all much more simply. She wrote:

“I feel like such a bad Catholic, I know I am. It’s be an insanely rough year and I’m tired. I miss how I felt when I converted.”

Yeah. It’s been a difficult year. I’m tired. I wish I could return to the energy and simplicity of conversion. To feel His love and be changed. That tiny desire for the sweetness of conversion was a spark to kindling and I spent time recalling my very first steps toward Christ and adult faith. What I found there brought me hope, peace, rest, renewed affinity for Church and family, and the desire to run breathlessly toward Easter…

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THE COLOR OF CONVERSION

I recall the first sparkling days of conversion when I didn't know how to pray a rosary but was alive with the joy of Jesus Christ. My brief time at Franciscan University of Steubenville in the 1990s was critical to my understanding of Catholicism as a movement of the whole person and not just a religious identity. Up to that point, I had only experienced liturgy as an obligation and not an expression of love. Most people I knew knelt and stood and prayed because we must and for no other reason. Or if there was another reason, they didn’t say.

But the colors of conversion were richer, the ordinary became astonishing, and I was awake to a new depth—another universe really—within my life. Prior to that, I thought I’d hit the end of all things and that the only hope was sweet respite in nothingness. Occultism offered that hope of disassociated relief until it brought terror. Then God met me in the terrifying space of no options and rescued me.

Conversion didn’t just apply a new lens but it changed the composition of my interior world. The vision sank into my soul and changed me permanently. Even through dark times and doubt, the imprint of encounter with Him remains unshakable. It is not my doing. He moves where He will.

At Franciscan, I learned what freedom within unity looked like in the body and in community. What it felt like. What it is and will be, though certainly through a glass darkly. (Mt 26:38)

I don’t know what it is like now (and I know not everyone’s experience mirrors my own), but I was there when FOPs (festivals of praise) were still in the original chapel, I could look out my window to see Fr. Scanlon playing tennis, a midnight excursion to the dorm chapel revealed habited sisters lying prostrate, and goodness and purity were more than pious talk.

It was a little like stumbling into Narnia.
What is this strange place? And why do I love it?

Mantillas showed up at charismatic Masses. Latin Masses were offered before it was trending. Denim jumpers sat next to sweatpants. Some knelt while others stood. Some bowed low while other elevated their arms. Worship—liturgical and paraliturgical—was diverse and alive. It was authentic in a way that seems unique to the spring of youth and any who manage to retain it.

I prayed with chant and I prayed with percussion, with foot stomping joy and with silence. If people used labels, I didn't hear it. I was incredibly naive, but still… I remember a student body collectively working toward virtue. It was new and wildly lovely to me. I had never known anything like it.

It was not chaos. It was a tapestry.

Within that context, I learned to be comfortable with prayer generally and with the marvelous array of expressions of faith within one united community. I also learned to be comfortable with my own body in a space of worship, to be both respectful of the sensibilities of others and also free to express through the body what is is alive in my mind and soul.

Quite simply, I learned to be more fully human, more cognizant of and responsive to the reality of the design and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I became traditional at the same time I became charismatic.

Reverence did not appear to be limited to a faction—no claim to particular gnosis that opens the gates of heaven to one group—but poured forth in thousands of little acts of devotion that breathed together as one set of lungs in the Spirit. No, not like lungs… like the cells of the entire respiratory system. I was alternately delighted and awkward in this new space and only understand now the treasure I had during that brief but formative time.

It matters now because the student eventually has to leave the cloister of the university and learn how to thrive through a foreign desert. Intellectual pursuit is wonderful but it doesn’t pay the bills, care for children, or give the answers to living under the pall of a spiritually paralyzed parish. Now that I’m pushing fifty, I can reflect on what happened after I left, what it means to be Church, why devout families succumb to doubt, and why so many parishes are sick unto death because the cells are poisoned.

Truthfully, I may not have survived various illnesses of the soul if I had not first known Church as a vibrant living truth. I have not had one conversion, I’ve had hundreds—maybe more—as I’ve low-key left the side of Christ repeatedly seeking LIFE only to find that He is the only source of life. And it does seem that the great work of any Christian life is to repeatedly and vigorously work to become a vessel of the Holy Spirit so that everything comes alive again. And again. And again.

Some critical experiences in the infancy of my Catholicity within authentic Catholic community:

• I walked in the midst of a healthy integrated community into which my repentant heart was received without hesitation.

• I was ignorant, silly, and timorous, but at no point was I treated with harshness or ridiculed by any member of the community.

• Vigorous discussion was abundant... and so was charity.

• I was tender and vulnerable but protected by souls who saw Christ in me and loved me for His sake.

• There was no shame in worshipping the God of the Universe with the voice and body. Differences were accepted.

• Reverence was organic because it followed belief and love.

• The pursuit of virtue as community was a marvelous contrast to almost every other institutional or community experience I’d had. A real life unicorn.

• I saw intellectual life in community that was vibrant and free. Even those with uncomfortable questions were generally treated with respect.

• The Confession lines were long. Very very long.

• Liturgy was packed full.

Now, in the “real” world of adult Catholicism, where banality and niggling bitterness threaten to consume community and the very soul, I still long for a unity of truth and tenderness which I know is possible. Messy, quirky, colorful… but possible. Possible because I follow Jesus Christ. The Way...

The one who sought out the woman at the well and tenderly brought her weary body and soul to the door of freedom. Thanks be to God.

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MISCELLANY

• My first 5K in three years is scheduled for June. My hip is finally healed enough and strong enough to take it! Let me be clear: I don’t like running, I like being able to run. Some of my kids are also coming with me because my misery loves company. When one of my adult kids heard about the adventure, he said to his siblings:

  
  “You really should stop allowing yourselves to get bamboozled by your mother into running 5ks.”

  
  His warning lit a fire under me. I now intend to bamboozle like I have never bamboozled before.

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• Running playlist. It’s odd but true that I will sometimes play just one or two songs on repeat for an entire workout. If I can get into a solid praise-centered rhythm and stay there, my odds of getting to the goal are much better. My methods are as random as my overall approach to running: I just hit the repeat button when I find a good one and then try to finish as quickly as I can. One song that kept me moving this week:

• I am reading John Paul II on the Vulnerable by Jeffrey Tranzillo. I just started reading so I don’t have a review, but I’m struck by the thought that it is time to harvest the beautiful crop of JPII’s heart and mind for Christ’s little ones.

• Looking for a new board game? I know some families like to add to their game collections at Easter to foster human interaction over tech. If that’s you, you might enjoy Hues and Cues. I recently played for the first time and enjoyed so many laughs with the crew.

• My spoons have been disappearing and we’re pretty sure that a tiny granddaughter has been tossing them in the garbage when she’s “cleaning up.” Those of you who are Lord of the Rings fans will appreciate that the strength of my inclination to call her Lobelia.

  

I pray that the final days of Lent are fruitful for you. I pray that you are able to rest, and that preparation is accompanied by the joy of childlike anticipation. God loves you. He was born and died and rose just so that you would know.

Pax Christi,

Melody

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