Sometimes you just can’t win! You live through January and a good bit of a generally harsh February, and then comes the news: Lent is here – time to get serious!

FR. FRANK MAJKA, SJ

Seriousness is perhaps appropriate for the sunblessed Mediterranean and Near Eastern folks who set the liturgical calendars, but after two or three winter months at forty-two degrees North, I for one have had quite enough of serious, thank you.

I realize that I echo the sentiments of only a segment of the population that lives in the Northern zones. I know there are people who are so in love with snow that they doubtless need a good dose of seriousness to dampen their winter ecstasies. Let these folks, then, jump into Lent with both feet and all the gravity they can muster. Let them think of their sins and embrace some good oldfashioned penances. Let them forgo their cups of hot chocolate after an afternoon of skating, their hot buttered rums after a day on the slopes. Let them, indeed, “weep and say: Spare, O Lord, your people!”

For those of us who find that the winter months are plenty of penance already, I have a simple suggestion, offered to my fellow sufferers of winter’s pains: let us leave new penances alone! We are already doing penance enough simply trying to keep a good attitude during these cold, dark months. Let us make it our Lenten practice to lighten up a bit.

Let us look for the light, seek out signs that winter’s icy grip may be loosening, look for drippings off icicles and patches of snowmelt next to the house. Let us notice that the sun is not as close to the horizon as it was in December, and take comfort in the fact that the Weather Channel tells us that each day is getting longer (though the gray overcast may suggest otherwise). An Advent reflection on the radio several years ago strikes me as very apropos. Noting that Christmas is the shining revelation of the splendor of God’s presence with us in the flesh, the speaker declared that Advent is the season when we let our eyes gradually adjust to the light so that Christmas won’t blind us.

I feel something similar about Lent. Let it be a time when we gradually thaw out our hearts. Let our Lent be spent looking for the signs of life within as well as without. Let it be marked by practicing kindness and noticing it in others, praising the good and being more compassionate. Let us prepare for Easter not as the end of Lent, but as the beginning of a 50-day celebration of the Resurrection, and get ourselves ready by practicing an asceticism of joy – looking for grace in unexpected places while affirming that Christ is Lord, and that we are blessed even when there’s snow outside. In short, let us who hate winter keep a Lent with more mirth and hot chocolate in it, not less.