Perpetual Lent

Every Lenten season is ushered in with the reading from the prophet Joel 2: 12-13, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God. 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? The pandemic closed many parishes during the Lenten season of 2020, and even though the liturgical seasons have come and gone, I find myself -- and I'd wager that many are with me -- in a state of perpetual Lent.