Lent and the Pandemic UPDATED

 

Perpetual Lent The pandemic is already a period of mourning.

I don't know if this Commonweal link will be accessible to everyone.  However if it is a brief article that raises an important question even though not giving a very satisfying answer.

How does one enter a time of fasting, weeping, and rending of hearts when you feel like you’ve already been in one for so long—when COVID-19, racism, xenophobia, political drama, ecclesial division, and the Capitol insurrection have kept us in a state of mourning and weeping for the past year? 

As I’m bombarded with reminders on social media that Lent is upon us, I’ve observed a spiritual disconnect. The way that our Catholic institutions are inviting us to enter this season makes it sound like it’s liturgical business as usual

Church leaders cannot blithely ask hard-hit communities to consider fasting and almsgiving as unemployment rates rise and families struggle to meet expenses and put food on the table. 

So what is to be done? This Lent presents us with an opportunity to examine the desert that we have been living in for the past year. If Church leaders and institutions wish to lead us in our Lenten spiritual journey, it is imperative that they unequivocally acknowledge the seriousness of the times and the horrors the pandemic has wrought. They need to provide opportunities for people to unpack the traumas of lost livelihood, lost loved ones, racism, and xenophobia

When Lent invites us to enter the desert—to return to God with our whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning—it is actually an invitation to recognize that we are already there, because there is suffering and injustice somewhere

I guess I see the question it raises and the need to face the present situation as important observations. I am not sure I know how to go about doing that, though I agree with her last observation. This Lent may hit home for almost everyone, however surely past Lents have hit home for the many people who live lives of perpetual suffering and injustice every Lent.  So maybe there is something wrong if Lent is the only time we face these issues?

I forget to include my post from the PrayTell blog back in 2011:

 Television, Time Use, Lent, and the Divine Office

Our most precious resource is time.  Time studies show that we are mostly unaware of how we spend our time. Overall leisure time, i.e. what is left over after accounting for sleep, paid work, and unpaid work, increased over the decades of the last part of the twentieth century. What did people do with that extra time?  They watched Television. 

While it once made sense to fast from food because a huge amount of time was devoted to producing food, now that part of the economy has greatly shrunk. It now makes sense to fast from Television and use that time more productively. 

Why is so much time devoted to television?  Some researchers have suggested it is because it is available to fill small chunks of time whereas many other things require some effort and large amounts of time. 

Based on research I argued that many things benefit from being done in small chunks of time, e.g. 15-20 minutes. Robert Boice, who was one of my professors in graduate school,  wrote a book for young faculty members arguing that small chunks of time was the best way to prepare for lectures, do research, and write books and articles.

I argued for two ascetical practices during Lent. First, keeping track of our time and reorienting its use. Second use small chunks of time during Lent would be to pray the Divine Office. It takes only about fifteen minutes to pray morning prayer, and that can broken up into segments such as doing each psalm, reading and prayer at odd moments.