As we enter the season of Lent, I look back on my first Lent as an almost-Catholic, in 1984. That Easter, I would be baptized, confirmed, and would receive my First Eucharist—but Lent was when it all started to come together. I went through the various scrutinies prescribed by RCIA, even though I went through a somewhat modified and shortened version of the process. I met regularly with a group of supportive parishioners, a prayer circle called “Romans Eight,” who companioned me on the journey. I arranged for my godmother, Sister Margaret Ellen Traxler, to come from Chicago to be with me, and also for my mother and various secular Jewish relatives to join in what, to them, was an unexpected, odd, and yet, somehow “okay” thing for their family member to do. [My bemused uncle would give me a fountain pen as a gift—the traditional one for a young person going through a bar/bat mitzvah.]
There was so much to do, and to learn, guided by my catechist, a New York Sister of Charity. The parish priest was wonderful—and is still a dear friend—cooking pasta to break my first Ash Wednesday fast (I would not appreciate till later how sharing a meal was so much a part of Catholic ritual and life), reading poetry by Gerard Manley Hopkins as we waited for the sauce to simmer. And yet, my main recollection of that forty days was of prayer, and meditation, and excitement, and anticipation: all a part of the seemingly endless waiting that I wanted to end so that I could reach my goal.
As I revisit the journal I kept during that period, something I try to do every year, I grow more and more appreciative of how much that waiting—the longing, the expectancy—enriched that journey into the unknown, that path toward a place of faith that continues to challenge and to enrich me, and to be home to me. What a part waiting plays in our journey toward the newness of the future! Sometimes it is impatient, and sometimes it is a waiting of quiet peace. Never is it lonely, though—not if we are attentive to the Spirit who has inspired us in the first place to step into that wonderful unknown…..
During that first magical and mysterious Lent, I had no idea where it would take me. I had no idea that my faith would grow and take me in such marvelously unexpected directions. I had no idea I would find two more successive parish homes that have been communities of grace and of joy. Most unexpectedly, I had no idea that my so much of my Catholic life would be gifted by relationship with a group of sisters whose center was over 700 miles from my home in upstate New York: Monroe’s Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary! My journey continues to be blessed by my Kairos Mission Unit, and so many other IHMs. Who would have expected that?!
So I continue to wait for and to welcome the waiting that is so central to the Lenten season. What will it bring this time around—for me, for you? Can I—can we—be open to its gifts, and particularly to the unforeseen? What does it mean?
Where is it calling us, now and throughout the year? Do we dare to let it take its course with us? Oh, God—let me wait, and see!
by Peggy Thompson IHM Associate and Professor of History at Syracuse University. Among her courses is Women’s Studies and among special interests, the history of women religious in which she has done considerable research, writing and presentation.
