Homeless for Lent

My student Paul Rollet at Exchanging Hope has written an excellent Lenten mediation. Here is an excerpt:

Prior to laying on the cot the first night, I never understood the full significance of God sending His son Jesus into this world in the form of a man, dwelling among us as a lower-class citizen. You see, God, in all his glory left his throne room in Heaven to come live with us! He had it all - even the richest man in the world cannot come close to having a fraction of the riches God possesses in Heaven - and yet he became poor. He took up residence in a tiny town called Nazareth to experience the mess man had gotten himself into.

Laying in my bed, surrounded by 25 to 75 year old men, men who did not have a home and had to stay in temporary shelters to get out of the cold, I realized why Jesus did what He did. You see, staying at the shelter as a guest put me at a level with the men that I didn't have as a volunteer who after serving go back to my bed in the suburbs. By stepping into their world, they told me things they wouldn't have told me otherwise, and they allowed me more of a chance to minister to them. Jesus did the same thing! By coming to earth in the form of man, He allowed us an opportunity to be in relationship with the God of the universe once again.

Paul is working part-time at the Franciscan Outreach Association on the west side of Chicago, living in a community of volunteers serving at a soup kitchen and at an emergency shelter for the homeless. In an email to the seminary community, Paul wrote:

After a conversation with two friends from seminary two weeks ago, discussing what they and their youth group's were doing for lent, I decided the one thing that would stretch me even more to find Jesus amongst the poor would be to live with them as homeless. So for four days last week I stayed as a guest at the shelter, in order to more fully experience the sacrifice and person of Jesus in the Lenten season.

I invite you to read Paul’s Lenten meditation.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Homeless, Lent, Poor

Lent: A Time of Repentance and Sorrow

Lent is a practice associated with the Roman Catholics Church. According to Catholic tradition, this ritual originated during the papacy of Gregory the Great (590-604), sometime in the 6th century. During Lent, the faithful places ashes on the head as a sign of repentance and sorrow.

In his article, “Forty Days of New Life,” Marcellino D'Ambrosio, discusses the reasons Lent lasts forty days and associates the forty-day observance to the use of the number 40 in the Old and New Testaments. He also discusses how the meaning of Lent is associated with the fasting and temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert.

For those who want to know more about Lent and for those who observe Lent, D'Ambrosio’s article will shed much light on this Catholic ritual.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Lent