Lent leans over
from ordinary time
and nudges me awake.
Purple, prayer, passion
pivot poignantly
around these forty days,
reminding me again
of faithful fasting,
fourteen stations
and new fervor.
It’s so easy
to slip and slide
into complacency
when desire wanes
despite meaningful messages
falling from itinerant preachers’ lips.
Wednesday’s ash, a reminder of repentance
quickly washes away,
as “metanoia” becomes
just another word
not heart changing conversion.
Suddenly sorrowful for so many sins
I bring my crushed spirit
fractured and broken,
and lay the wounded me
at the foot of the cross.
In a moment
I remember heartbroken Jesus
and unite my sufferings to his
in a silence of intimacy
born of basking in
the Divine Presence.
“The Lord is close to the broken hearted;
and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.” (Psalm 34:19)