The Seventh-Inning Stretch

It's behind us, now, with Laetare Sunday celebrated and almost forgotten. Now the game really begins.

A little more than halfway through this Lent in the Year of Jubilee, it appears to me to be a hard slog: which means that Lent is going well. Lent is meant to be that time of year in which we plough the hard-packed ground of our souls, finding the rocks and tangles that still abound, offering them to the Lord so that He may address them with his grace and grant us the lights and graces we need to correspond to his action.

Several men I know report this is so. While the sample is small, I suggest this is not anecdotal evidence, but rather the glimmerings of a new beginning in the Church. Such talk is common, of course, and has always been so: for isn’t it the case that Christ always offers us new life, new beginnings? Still, throughout the world, hundreds of thousands of men are engaged in a common exercise that has them looking into the beauties of God’s goodness and his redemptive desire for the human race — and for each person of it. This exercise has brought us through the Book of Jonah and now into the prophecies of Isaiah, with interludes in the Gospel and a wealth of supporting material designed to assist spiritual growth. This is but one program!

I write this because I am convinced that a renewal of the Church begins with a renewal of its lay men. Some years ago, at a celebration of Pentecost, a priest gave an astounding sermon as to the effects of men’s engagement with the Faith. Turns out that if the father of a family is practicing the Faith and engaged with other men so doing, the likelihood of the Faith’s successful transmission to the next generation positively skyrockets. There are no guarantees, of course: secularization, the effects of media, an incessant drumbeat against the practice of the Faith all take their toll. Still, I have seen time and again through the course of my life that the statistic is true: if dads are practicing the Faith together, the Faith transmits to the next generation. It doesn’t take a village, quite: it takes a band of brothers.

To be part of a band of brothers engaging in common exercises designed to support each man in plowing the ground still packed down is to be part of the quiet movement of grace, the undercurrent, as it were, that carries new life and hope to those men, their wives and families, and the Church and world.

Nor is this the only motive for joy. Repentance brings change. Often it is long-desired change, if we are honest enough with ourselves to know where we are still broken and still need the grace of Christ to heal, restore, and renew. Often, too, it is unexpected change, the revelation of an insight long in coming, the glimpse of pardon long ago offered and only partially received if at all, the revelation of the Father’s delight in the return of his Prodigal Son.

That son did not wait until he was neat and tidy before his return. He did not return a conqueror, successful in his endeavors. He was a mess. He was a disgrace. He was contemptible.

And the Father was delighted, overjoyed, by his son’s return.

It’s not too late to double-down into our Lenten exercises, no matter how well or badly they’ve gone, by our lights. In fact, it’s the perfect time.