Journeying in Joy and Gladness: Lent & Holy Week with Gaudete et Exsultate

By Kevin O'Gorman

For the journey of Lent this year, Kevin O’Gorman SMA chose an unusual companion, the Pope’s Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate, ‘Rejoice and Be Glad’. Few of us rejoice at the coming of Lent, a time we most often associate with abstention and stricture. It easy to imagine the look on the faces of parishioners who are told ‘rejoice, Lent is here!’ Christianity is a religion of the unexpected: the triumph of Good News in bad places. Journeying in Joy and Gladness offers a day-by-day guide to Lent, pairing each day with a reflection on Gaudete et Exsultate. Lent offers us a chance to renew our commitment to lifelong conversion, to strive for changes of mind, body and heart; changes that O’Gorman and Pope Francis remind us do not come at the cost of happiness but make it possible and give us reason to rejoice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Messenger Publications
• Release date: Apr 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781788124157

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ASH WEDNESDAY

The Lord asks everything of us, and in return he offers us true life, the happiness for which we were created (GE, 1)

Lent does not normally begin with happiness. We are more accustomed to hearing of how hard it will be. The theme of conversion, which the season of Lent begins with, is often understood in terms of sacrifice, struggle and even suffering. An overly moralistic approach to Lent means, however, that Christians can sometimes look, in a line from the Pope’s previous Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), ‘like someone who has just come back from a funeral’ (EG, 10). The challenge of the Gospel is to consider the call to repentance in the light of what we receive from God. This means holding the darkness of our lives up against the light of God’s love, seeing the contrast between the sin of the world and the salvation offered in the kingdom of God.

Pope Francis is clear that Lenten and lifelong conversion ‘asks everything of us’. Conversion asks for change in mind, heart and even body, perhaps even to the extent of losing our lives. However, Pope Francis is equally clear that conversion will not cost happiness, will not cheat us of human fulfilment. Happiness hinges on holiness. True human happiness needs the healing and hope that holiness holds out; holiness helps us become fully human. Offering everything is not one option among others but an opening of our minds, hearts and bodies to truth, love and wholeness. The goal of conversion is communion with God and others. Repentance is a turning towards holiness, returning to receive ‘the happiness for which we were created’. Holiness is the hallmark of authentic happiness.

THURSDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY

For the Lord has chosen each one of us ‘to be holy and blameless before him in love’ (Eph 1:4) (GE, 1)

Wherever we head on land, sea or sky we encounter a horizon. This is due to the curvature of the earth. Horizons hold a sense of limitation, of boundary and being hedged in. Showing a slice of space (and time) a horizon serves as a metaphor for the human condition, calling to mind the contingency of life and reminding us of our mortality. At the same time horizons are beacons of hope, beckoning us beyond the confines of the present towards the possibilities of the future. As the proverb reminds us, faraway hills are forever green. Encounter and horizon are two favourite images of Pope Francis. For him encounter expresses an engagement with others that is ethical because of the Gospel. This is encounter as evangelisation. The experience of God’s love exhorts and energises us to go out of ourselves and give to others. Horizon describes the direction in which we are drawn – more and more towards holiness. A holiness that the Second Vatican Council teaches is the perfection of love. Love leads to holiness and holiness is lived out in love.

The call to conversion at the beginning of Lent is an invitation to look at our lives and ask whether they are oriented towards the holiness and goodness that are at the heart of love. In stating that each person is chosen ‘to be holy and blameless before him in love’ Francis is speaking of the need to look closely at our lives and lifestyles. Lent is not the issuing of a list of dos and don’ts but an invitation to love. This is not a human resources exercise where boxes are ticked off in an inventory of the moral and even spiritual life. Instead it involves looking at the mindset and listening to the heart that guides our lifestyle, to consider and choose what brings us blamelessness and blessedness rather than bitterness and banishment.

FRIDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY

All the faithful are called by the Lord – each in their own way – to that perfect holiness by which the Father himself is perfect (GE, 10)

This quote, taken from the Second Vatican Council’s document on the Church, provides Pope Francis with the blueprint to lay out the path to holiness. This path involves a personal journey undertaken with the support of the saints, past and present, those named and unnamed, whom he calls the saints ‘next door’. While conversion is ultimately personal we are reminded that ‘no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual’ (Interview with Pope Francis, Fr Antonio Spadaro, 2013). Conversion is the experience of salvation, conferred in the company of the saints and celebrated in the community of the Church.

The personal journey to holiness creates a path in the course of life which is unique,