So. Here we are. Lent.
Forgive me, but doesn’t it feel like we were just preparing for the Nativity fast?
Didn’t we just barely finish soaking up 12 days of Christmas?
Didn’t I just get rid of my Christmas tree, and now a season of repentance is already upon us again?
It seems that the Church is trying to teach us something: We must really have a lot of repenting to do.
Note my emphasis on “we.”
This is important because as we approach this time, I’m reminded of something that’s easy to overlook: Lent is not just about individual repentance. It’s about the community.
It’s about commending our whole life to Christ.
You see, Lent is often a time where we talk a lot about personal struggles— my sin, my failures, and my need for transformation. Don’t get me wrong: those are absolutely essential parts of the journey.
But if we’re not careful, we can start to believe that Lent is only about me and God, about my repentance and my journey, about my spiritual life.
All too often we forget that the Church is a Family, a Body, a group of people called to journey together. The Church is a hospital for souls, not a series of private rooms where we go to be healed alone.
Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about the familiar parable of the Prodigal Son. Truth be told, I’m still thinking about it quite a bit.
While it’s a story that shows us how eager and willing God is to welcome us home when we’ve been wayward, I also mentioned a bit about the older son.
To recap, though the older son stays home, he never truly knows the Father.
Yes, he works tirelessly, he follows the rules; but his heart doesn’t seem to know the depth of his Father’s love because unlike his younger brother, he has never come to know his utter desperation for it.
The older son is too busy being good to recognize his need for the Father.
As Orthodox Christians, I think we are all at risk of becoming like the older son, especially during Great Lent.
We may go to Church, we may follow the fasts, we may pray, and we show up—but do we really come to experience our need for the love of Christ in our bones?
Have we really come face-to-face with our own need to be loved and restored to the larger community of God’s people?
This Lent, it just may be time for us to move beyond the notion of our individualistic takes on the spiritual life.
We may hear people say “I’m fasting” or “I’m receiving communion,” but this isn’t fitting with our ecclesiology. It’s not me who fasts or communes with God; it’s the Church.
Yes, of course, I do offer myself as a member of the Church, but in doing so, I participate in the spiritual and sacramental life of the Church. I cannot commune with God without also communing with all the saints throughout the ages who have communed with God themselves.
So while I have a personal part to play, it can never simply be my own, individual spiritual life. It’s our life in Christ.
So this Great Lent, as we undertake the increased services, the increased level of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, perhaps we must also think of repentance itself as a shared endeavor.
Perhaps we, too, can confess openly that we are all desperately in need for our hearts and minds to be transformed by Jesus.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately: To be a Christian, to follow Jesus means to believe that He was right about everything.
Everything.
That’s the heart of repentance—to recognize that Jesus alone knows the whole truth about us and the world, and that He alone offers healing.
So, unless you’re willing to go so far as to say that you see things exactly the way Jesus sees them, that you know the truth as fully as Jesus…well, then it means that you have to be able to admit that you’re wrong at least a little.
That you’re wrong about something.
And here’s the beautiful thing about being a part of the Church. It means that we can be a community of people who don’t need to be bashful about the fact that we’re all wrong about something.
Since none of us is fully like Jesus, we can all fully admit that we’re at least a little bit wrong.
Of course, this is something that bucks conventional wisdom which tells us that we must save face, refuse to admit when we’ve done anything wrong, and even to double down and say why the wrong thing we did was actually okay or at least how it wasn’t that bad.
But that’s not the way of following Jesus, the only one who is right about everything.
This Lent, the Church has the unique opportunity to become a countercultural force, a family where no one needs to have it all together, but a home where we can admit that we don’t.
The Church can be a place of radical transformation, a place where we journey together, admitting our wrongness, confessing our sins, and seeking healing—not in isolation, but as a community of broken people who know that we need the Lord and that we need one another.
But the reality is this is going to take practice.
We won’t become a confessing community by accident.
It should be obvious that the most important step that we can take toward becoming a confessing community is by first becoming a group of individuals who go to Confession.
As much as I have said this isn’t an individualistic pursuit, it still is reality that as a member of the Body of Christ, I have to choose to work in alignment with the Holy Spirit, and I can do this by scheduling my own Confession.
The Church expects us all to make a Confession during Lent. It’s one of four times during the year that it’s explicitly called for, so let’s make the most of it. However, let’s not do it just as a private exercise, but rather as a shared experience. Let’s encourage one another to make use of the sacrament of Confession, and possibly even to set time aside for it as a community.
If you’re like me, your Lenten Confession frequently gets pushed off until the last week or two of the Fast, and if you get enough people like us, it makes for a busy end of Lent for our priests.
This year, let’s prioritize it, and schedule it early in the fast.
I’ve also wondered what it would look like to have a “Confession Session.” This could be a designated day when—if your priest finds it agreeable—people schedule their individual confessions and then enjoy a light meal together as a community.
Or maybe consider approaching a few friends or family members and scheduling your confessions on the same day. Afterwards you can celebrate your mutual repentance and forgiveness with a meal and wonderful company.
I think this is where we must start. We must make confession and talking about confession and scheduling confession a normal part of our shared life if our repentance is going to be mutual; but I also think there are a few other things we can do to lean into our need to confess as a community.
Here’s What Else You Can Do:
Be fine being “not fine.” We’ve all done it. Someone approaches us at coffee hour and asks how we’re doing. “Fine,” we say. But what if we’re not fine? Perhaps one step we can all take toward becoming a community is simply to respond honestly. Maybe we can start by responding, “You know what, I’m not fine, but that’s ok.” Perhaps the first step is just admitting that we don’t have it all together all the time.
* Consider establishing a small group of support—a Confession Circle, if you will—where you and some trusted others can gather and support each other in this journey. Such groups can be a place to hold and address struggles, doubts, and fears by praying for each other, offering encouragement, and holding one another accountable. And let’s remember that these circles are not meant to be spaces of judgment or condemnation, but places of grace and mercy, where we recognize our shared desperation and need for God’s forgiveness.
* Practice radical forgiveness because we’re all desperate for it. Lent is not just about me and God; it’s about God, us, and each other. In our parishes, in our families, and in our communities, we need to actively seek reconciliation. Just as the Father runs to meet the Prodigal Son, we too are called to reach out to those who have hurt us and offer them forgiveness. It’s not easy, but it is necessary.
* Pray for one another. Like really pray. Aloud. Let’s pray for the people in our communities who are struggling, for those who are far from the faith, and for those who are suffering. Let’s not be content with simply going through the motions but truly intercede on behalf of others with others.
We don’t know what the future holds, but we do know that God has called us to be His hands and feet in this world. He has called us to welcome the lost, to love the broken, and to share in the joy of His forgiveness. But in order to do that, we need to be a community that practices confession, forgiveness, and prayer.
In the end, Lent is not just about me and God—it’s about us and God. It’s about building a community that doesn’t just tolerate one another but that loves one another, bears one another’s burdens, prays for one another, and journeys together toward the joy of the Resurrection.
Let’s allow Lent to work on us this year, to be a time of real transformation—not just for ourselves but for the whole Body of Christ. The Father is waiting to embrace us all. Let’s run to meet Him.
After all, He’s already running toward us.