2022 February
We’ll soon be embracing the grace-filled season of Lent with the observance of Ash Wednesday. Some years ago, Dr. Daniella Zsupan-Jerome, Director of Ministry Formation and Field Education at Benedictine Saint John’s University, introduced me to John Berney Crome’s painting, Great Gale at Yarmouth on Ash Wednesday. The canvas invites us into the Lenten season with a visual story of turbulence featuring clouds and waves converging on the coast. The clouds belie the invisible power of the wind. That wind in turn stirs up the waves tossing the boat and slapping the coastal buildings. The clouds are varied: large white ones as well as dark storm clouds. The central black cloud is especially imposing; it is smeared, in the shape of a cross, much like the sign marked on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday. Lent calls us to conversion on the journey to Easter. That path is often through rough waters. We are tossed in the waves of our own desires and poor decisions; we are assaulted by our temptations and selfishness.
