Lent: The Journey Begins

Today marks the beginning of our Lenten journey this year, and it reminds me of so many other journeys I have experienced in my life.

As we often share with students on Confirmation retreats, the Mass is a kind of journey, a quest, with the prize of receiving Jesus Christ in the Eucharist as its end.

Our chaplain, Fr. Schuster, likes to use another Journey to help students fully engage in the retreat experience: He walks into the room with his guitar and plays the 1981 classic "Don't Stop Believin'", encouraging retreatants to sing along.

I made quite a journey myself to get here back in August, hopping on an airplane in Florida's busy Orlando International Airport and traveling all day to reach Mt. Tabor Center in Menasha, WI.

And speaking of long journeys, the longest trip ever taken by human beings (to the moon!) started from my hometown of Titusville, FL.

But it's another journey that we are called to reflect on during this season of Lent, a journey that in many ways dominates our experience of being Christians. This is the journey we remember and celebrate with every Mass, the journey that we find (if we dare to look closely enough) reflected in the course of each of our lives. It's the deceptively-simple journey of Christ as He carries His cross.

When we show The Passion of the Christ on Confirmation retreats, this is the part students watch. If we didn't already know the story, it would all seem so straightforward. A Man, already bruised and bloody, carries a heavy wooden cross on which He is to be crucified as a common criminal. He falters, too weak to go on, and another man is forced to aid Him. At every turn along the way, the cross-bearers and their Roman escort encounter resistance. When they finally reach the top of the hill on which the execution is to take place, the Condemned can barely find strength to stand.

But cut throughout this drama are sometimes-confusing scenes that hint to us that something more might be going on here. And there is something more: this Man is Jesus, fully human but also fully God. And He is innocent of the crimes for which He has been condemned. His death is for our salvation.

There is so much more going on during this journey than I can ever hope to describe, but one thing that always stands out to me is the other man, the one who helps Jesus carry His cross: Simon of Cyrene. Here is a man who wants nothing to do with Jesus, but, through walking beside Him, comes to love Him. Simon suffers with Jesus as they both struggle under the weight of the cross. At one point, Simon offers to endure anything the Roman soldiers can inflict upon him, only demanding that they stop ridiculing Jesus. I am always reminded that this Simon, who did not even know Jesus until shortly before the Crucifixion, went on to become a saint.

Lent offers us a time to walk with Christ to the Crucifixion, remembering always that the Resurrection waits just beyond. It allows us to suffer with Christ as we take up our own crosses of penance. It reminds us that in some ways, our entire lives must be a kind of Way of the Cross, as every day we die to self and learn to live more fully in Christ. Lent is the time when we reflect on this simple truth: if we wish to go where Christ goes, we must walk with Him.