A Lenten invitation

To all my Protestant and nondenominational brothers and sisters... As you know from my numerous posts, Catholics are immersed on a season of quiet, reflective, and internal prayer, penance and almsgiving during these 40 days which precede Resurrection Sunday.
During this time we undertake various fasts and try to walk with Jesus through the desert, in His passion, and along the Way of The Cross.
Particularly on Fridays, the day He died, we show repentance and love for Him by fasting and abstaining from eating meat. We also practice a centuries old tradition called "the Stations of the Cross." inside every Catholic Church is a series of numbered "stations" or paintings of particular incidents Jesus encountered on His way to the Cross. Some churches even do these "live action" during lent. At each station, you hear a brief reading depicting the scene at hand, and then you kneel in silence and meditate on whatever God gives you for that particular scene. The whole thing takes around twenty minutes... But they are some of the most powerful and spirit-filled moments you will spend all year.
Friday nights during lent at St Patrick's, we gather communally for a simple meal of bread and soup and walk the Stations of the Cross together. Children are welcome and on some nights there is childcare.
On Good Friday the Church also does various traditions like the veneration of the cross-- I have been to one of these where we could touch and kiss a cross that contained a piece of wood-- a relic-- of the true Cross on which He died- amazing!
During the service of Easter we read the crucifixion and resurrection narrative in Scripture out loud. It is a profoundly life-changing experience to be in a room with thousands of people hearing the Scriptures that tell the Story of His death and riding again, and to literally see every knee bend at the name if Jesus... Not to mention that the same thing is happening in every Catholic Church the world over at the same time!

Anyways, I'm writing to ask you to consider joining me at one of these events this year: either in observing lent, in joining me on a Friday night for soup and the Stations, or in the veneration of the cross on Good Friday, or in the celebration of His Resurrection on Sunday. If you don't live near me, you can do it in your own city, without me, at your local Catholic Church.
There are so many things that separate us from Unity of the faith. There is a rift between us in doctrinal matters that is often so great that we simply cannot worship together. But I know that many of you are curious about---even antagonistic towards-- the Catholic Faith. I cannot imagine a better way to work towards Unity and inclusion in the blessed Body of Christ than to walk alongside you as we demonstrate our love for Jesus by laying aside our flesh and seeking The Crucified One together in a common meditation on the Cross. Would you join me?


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