By Barb Arland-Fye
Editor
A mother’s calm voice, coming from behind me, caught my attention during a midafternoon walk on Duck Creek Parkway Trail in Davenport. “We’re coming to a hill,” she told someone whom I guessed to be a child following behind her, both of them on bicycles. “When we pass someone, we pass on the left and then get back into our lane,” she continued.
The young mother passed me at a leisurely pace on her bicycle, a contented toddler riding on the back seat. Behind them, a preschooler rode his small bicycle, looking confident but following his mother’s guidance without question. She turned to look back, to confirm her son’s success negotiating the hill and passing carefully on the left. Mission accomplished. The young family continued on its way that pleasant day.
The memory of that experience, which happened during the first week of Lent, comes to mind as I reflect on my Lenten experience. Over the past several weeks, I have written or edited other staff and writers’ articles about Lent. This journalistic immersion has not prevented my Lenten journey from becoming a personal tug of war.
The words “conversion” and “spiritual growth” echo in my brain. “We are called not only to abstain from luxuries during Lent, but to a true inner conversion of heart as we seek to follow Christ’s will more faithfully,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says in an article titled “What is Lent?” (https://tinyurl.com/yc8eysta).
In his list of “10 Things to Remember for Lent,” Bishop David Ricken of the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin says, “Lent is essentially an act of prayer spread out over 40 days. As we pray, we go on a journey, one that hopefully brings us closer to Christ and leaves us changed by the encounter with him” (https://tinyurl.com/5xcx6tn5).
I prepared a mental list of my intentions for engaging in prayer, fasting and almsgiving, which Bishop Dennis Walsh describes as “practices of spiritual growth for almost every major religion.” My actions have fallen far short of my intentions. What happened?
In re-evaluating my plans and intentions, I experienced an epiphany moment on Duck Creek Parkway earlier this week. My mind’s eye replayed the “video” of the young mother guiding her preschooler on his bicycle, and his trust in following her guidance. That memory intersected with another memory, listening to the homily Bishop Walsh gave during the Rite of Election of Catechumens and of Calling the Candidates to Continuing Conversion the first Sunday of Lent in Ottumwa. In that homily, he encouraged the gathering to learn two important lessons: “God will always be faithful to us” and “we must learn to trust God on the journey …”
The preschooler trusting his mother on their journey along the parkway reminds me to trust God on my Lenten journey. It seems a bit more challenging this year as retirement approaches in May and I begin a new journey!
However, I feel some reassurance in an observation that Father Thom Hennen made in his homily for the Rite of Election of Catechumens and of Calling the Candidates to Continuing Conversion in Davenport. He encouraged the gathering not to “fret about who you are. Do not be dismayed. Do not walk alone. Walk with others and with Jesus. You will reach your destination.”
(Contact Barb Arland-Fye at arland-fye@davenportdiocese.org)
