March 2026

As we come to the final days of Lent and our remembrance of the betrayal, suffering and death of Jesus, let us reflect upon our own internal sense of betrayal, self-betrayal. Consider our needs to be honest with ourselves... and with God.

How are you today, Nancy?" I asked. It was during a coffee-hour, after worship a number of years ago. "I'm fine," she answered. Knowing that she was going through a divorce, and facing other challenges as well, I responded, "Are things really OK?"

She blinked, then answered, "Oh - We're being honest here!" She then proceeded to tell me how she really was.

Flannery O'Connor once said: "I come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation." I thought of Nancy when I read O'Connor's words this week. I also thought of my own family of origin. And I thought of many churches, where being respectable is valued more highly than being honest.

Lent is not a season for polishing our facade, or putting our best foot forward. Lent, especially Holy Week, is a time for being honest with ourselves: honest about our weaknesses and our fears; honest about our hopes and our desires. Holy Week is also a time for being honest with God.

Praying the psalms - which express the gamut of human emotions from fear to joy, from grief and anger to praise and exultation - can help us. As Kathleen Norris writes, "the earthy honesty of the psalms ... defeat[s] our tendency to try to be holy without being human first."

She goes on to say, "The psalms make us uncomfortable because they don't allow us to deny either the depth of our pain or possibility of its transformation into praise."

So spend some time with the psalms this Holy Week. Don't leave out the angry parts. Pray them aloud, write your own paraphrases, allow the images to lead you to the depths of your own heart. After all, we're being honest here.

               --by Bill

Sources:

"The Writer's Almanac," March 25, 2014. http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2014/03/25 

Kathleen Norris, "The Paradox of the Psalms," in The Cloister Walk, New York Riverhead Books, 1996.ng!"

Anyone my age and older might recall a brown book, front and back covers tied with a brown twine, titled: Leaves of Gold. It is an anthology of prayers, memorable phrases, and inspirational verse and prose.

Ours is the 1947, 12th printing edition. Underlines and parentheses mark the wisdom that my Daddy unrelentingly held dear. Here is one: "All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty and good nature. - Montaigne."

Someone said that an unexamined life is not worth living. But perhaps it is more difficult to be honest with ourselves since it's easier to see others' faults rather than our own. 

During this Lenten Season we are called to make an honest evaluation of our life.

I noticed in the local newspaper that a downtown Catholic Church will be open for confession round the clock Saturday. Regardless of one's religious conviction, many people admit that an honest examination and telling of one's faults is extremely healing and freeing.

People in Twelve Step programs answer a similar call. Step 4: To make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Step 5: Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

As Spiritual Director, I am sometimes the "another human being" who listens. After the 'confession' I usually observe in the Directee, an incredible sense of peace and a released-from-bondage-freedom.

This kind of freedom opens the space for the person to forgive others and to reach out to others in compassion - with honesty and good nature.

--by Jan

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