Newsletter Year: 2022

Someone once wagered Ernest Hemingway that he could not write a story in six words. The writer won the bet when he came up with: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” There is a literary genre called the six-word memoir, or the six-word story. The premise is to communicate much in a few words. One example is: “Penniless weirdo. Struck lottery. Overnight genius. These short, short stories provide few details, but there is sufficient substance to convey the essential meaning. Could there be a six-word Easter sermon? We could say it prosaically: “Died on Friday; rose on Sunday.” Or more eloquently as the angel did: “He’s not here; he is risen.” Or musically as did Georg Frederic Handel: “O death, where is thy victory?” Actually the Church has been proclaiming a bold, six-word Gospel practically since the beginning. It says in the space of six scant words that the whole world
has been dramatically changed by God’s grace and power. They are six words you know, and I pray you have them etched in your mind, engraved on your heart, and ready on your lips: “The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!”

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.