I have come to see these 40 days leading up to Easter not only in the liturgies that arise from them or in the meager fasting obligations the Church asks of us Catholics, but also in the way I see those around me. Lent has become for me more about awareness of the human condition and the very people I encounter who reflect it.
Lent is in the face of my friend Blue, who, as a schizophrenic with a limited IQ and a past of thievery, is finally off the streets, out of prison and in a group home up in Elon. I will be with him some in these 40 days and his laugh will lead me to Easter.
Lent is in the face of the man in a church basement meeting who says for the very first time, "My name's Joe, and I'm an alcoholic."
It is in the beautiful range of the faces of autism in our families and in the blessed faces of our Down Syndrome citizens, 90 percent of whom, when the mother tests positive, are killed in the womb. Joy hides in Lent just as it shines in the eyes of those lovely babies who make it out alive to teach their parents how to live.
Lent is in the face of the man in the aftermath of a stroke who is walking ever so slowly the indoor track at the YMCA, courageously bringing himself back to his family and friends with God's help, one very small step at a time.
It is also in the face of the older gentleman at the back of the church just before morning Mass, emptying his change for the week in the poor box.
It is in the refugee mother staring across a rickety skiff at her young son, his yearning eyes a desperate prayer.
Lent is in the curious and eager faces of the RCIA candidates and catechumens who are walking these 40 days step by step to the front of the church to receive Our Lord in the great miracle of the Eucharist and thus into the eternal grace of our Holy Mother Church.
It is in the faces of all the sorrowful, watching loved ones being ravaged by cancer, unable to protect their fragile mortality or ease their pain, or in the face of aching loneliness in the newest widow, who still calls a spouse's name or reaches across to the empty place in the bed at night.
I see the face of Lent in the figures of the Stations of the Cross, frozen there in the agonizing hours of Christ's Passion and in His face staring at me over the years from the gifted hands of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Rubens, Hofmann, Murillo, El Greco and Chagall.
Accordingly, Lent is in all our mirrors, in our honest contrition, in our resolute hope, in our silent apologies and in our silent forgiveness.
Lent is here to make me aware of the "sacrament of the moment," to remind me to cry out like the psalmist for my God to cleanse me and to hide His face from my faults so that my humbled bones may rejoice. It tells me that all I encounter has God's seed and that to love is to suffer. Lent also says to me that our suffering will end and we will be rendered white as snow.
And I have finally, I think, found out that Lent is itself the transforming face of Easter.
Fred Gallagher is editor-in-chief at Good Will Publishers Inc. and an author and former addictions counselor. He and his wife Kim are members of St. Patrick Cathedral in Charlotte.
This Missionary of Mercy confesses to you that I haven't always followed to the letter the canon law of the Church, namely Canon 964, which states that "the proper place for hearing sacramental confessions is a church or oratory" and that "except for a just reason, confessions are not to be heard elsewhere than in a confessional." I have been very broad in my interpretation of a "just reason."
Scaling particularly deadly mountain walls with friends, or other similarly intense moments, has never been an occasion for me to hear a confession. However, as any priest, I do recall terrible traffic accidents when absolutions were provided. We've all heard confessions in hospitals and rehabilitation centers, as well as in nursing homes and assisted living centers. But those are to be taken for granted.
Some venues for confessions might be considered strange by those who just can't imagine themselves confessing in such circumstances, but others are less inhibited. I've frequently heard confessions in the midst of rushing crowds in airport concourses or train stations, outside supermarkets or on street corners. Cars and trucks and parking lots are most favored, but so are walking confessions, which make their way along city sidewalks or country roads.
A house, a barn, a dog kennel, a chicken coop ... any place will do. Mercy is available everywhere.
The fact of someone wanting to go to confession is a "just cause" for not using a confessional, even when a confessional is right at hand. Sometimes the sacristy is better for any number of reasons. In some places, women's confessions were traditionally heard in "the box," while men's confessions were heard in the sacristy.
Having said this, though, there are limits. Proximity is necessary for the sacrament. No video conferencing. No phones. No radio talk shows. No email or texting or Facebook or Twitter. Not even Snapchat. No sacrilege.
Permit me, though, to bring you to a place to offer your confession so strange that you may not have considered it – not realizing that you have been confessing in this most unheard of place since your very first confession. You'll need your imagination for this, but only because it's so real that it's hard to wrap one's mind around.
Imagine that when you go into the confessional, to your shock you see that there is someone already kneeling down just starting to confess. It's Jesus! You kneel beside Him sheepishly, and see your own priest on the other side of the screen. Jesus then starts to confess all your sins as if they were His own. He's brief and to the point, includes aggravating circumstances and numbers of times for any serious sins. He just enumerates the sins without ambiguity, without excuse. He then concludes: "I accuse myself of all these sins, Father, and I beg absolution and penance." Your priest then gives you your penance and absolves you, and you go away filled with wonder at the great love of Jesus who, in order to provide the grace of that absolution, stood in our place, taking on the death we deserve because of our sin.
When we confess, we do so alongside Jesus, who steps in for us. But because He does that on a spiritual level, we must be loyal to Him by ignoring any fear, any humiliation we might feel. Instead of looking to ourselves, we look to see His goodness and kindness. That's a strange place to confess from, alongside Jesus, is it not? And yet, it is all very familiar, for no matter how strange the place is in which we might confess, we are always right next to Jesus, who loves us so very much.
Father George David Byers is administrator of Holy Redeemer Church in Andrews and one of two "Missionaries of Mercy" commissioned by Pope Francis in the Diocese of Charlotte.