Togetherness: A Reflection in Lent
- Nancy Tondy
- Apr 1
- 2 min read
April 1, 2025
by Fionnuala Frances
The challenge in Lent, in a time of travail in the world, is to not let ourselves turn inward. This time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving needs to be carefully and relentlessly turned to God to ensure it doesn’t become "all about me." This includes self-reproach ("I’m such a sinner"), self-congratulation, ("I’m such a successful faster") or even smugness – ("I’m so generous").
One way we can avoid such ego-traps in our everyday life is through Togetherness.
Praying together and sharing the fruits of that prayer can startle us with the unexpected, as other people share different wisdom from the Holy Spirit encountered in their own prayer. Fasting takes us to the heart of the incarnation, as we feel and recognize in our bodies the pangs of hunger or longing for what is being fasted from, and encounter other real bodies who can help us notice and acknowledge our self-denial and need for reliance on a higher power. Almsgiving is enriched by the Togetherness of the realities of the experience of awareness of our own lack, as well as privilege and the difficulty of really sharing.
Jesus watched and understood the widow giving a small amount generously. (Luke 21:1-4). This Lent may be a time not for abstract feelings of generosity, but for searching for the people suffering the very real, corporal consequences of poverty and uncertainty. We pray not so much for their wellbeing (although that too), but to share a Togetherness with their fear and sorrow and need as we do what we can to walk with them on their calvary. It is difficult to avoid a "them and us" attitude, but reflecting on and prayerfully imagining Jesus’ passion story can help with that understanding of our oneness with God, with Jesus, and with one another.
Meditation: Alone by Maya Angelou
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
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