March 11th, 2025

“Rend your heart, and not your garments…”                                                           Joel 2:13a
“Abide in me, as I abide in you.”                                                                                  John 15:4

Miriam-Webster tells us:

To Rend:   1.  to remove from place by violence
                   2.   to split or tear apart or in pieces by violence
                   3.   to tear (hair or clothing) as a sign of anger, grief, or despair

It seems that the third definition comes closest to what most of us think of when we envision rend. To rend is a disturbing act with unwanted emotion. To understand rend this way helps make sense of what God said through Joel.

If I were to rend my clothing out of my despair, anger or grief, I would be showing the world my travail. God does not want us preoccupied by what others think or how we should share our burden with them. God wants us all to God’s self.  The rending of Lent is not like the cosmetic showmanship of tearing your robe. No, Lent goes deeper, to the heart, the marrow, into the sticky, black darkness of our inner selves that festers all kinds of pestilence which kills and destroys. Lent is the invitation to shine God’s light of truth and grace into these tender spaces and render our hearts clean. 

Lent calls us to abide in Jesus, to travel with him in the way of suffering. The sacrificial life of Jesus leads us to the same place he goes—the Cross. And just as we fittingly call the Friday he dies “Good,” so too the season of Lent is fittingly—curiously, joyous.

Lent offers a unique kind of Joy. That joy comes in the somber realization that our sinfulness can be confessed to God’s open ears. It is a peace that believes that same sinfulness is met in unequal and greater measure by God’s grace, which washes it away.  The joy of Lent is the awareness that Jesus walks beside us in the here-and-now, and that he will wipe away every tear shed by a rent heart and make it whole.

Accepting His Joy in Lent,
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Fr. Bill+