LENT IN THE MARIAN YEAR

LENT [1]  IN THE MARIAN YEAR

Changed be our vesture ... fasting and weeping ...

Ashes and sackcloth, these be all our wear ...[2]

How, within the lazy languour of ripe habit,

will I in penance fare?

The scourge of little whips can hardly touch

the secret sins, maculate and kept,

I can adjust a hair shirt with a mirror,

and make the Miserere [3] sound inept.

You are my valour, Mother, signed upon your year;

in you only am I sanctioned; in your face

alone my weeping finds no mockery;

my more than bread and water holy in your grace.

I desire (God knows how I desire) the cross,

though starveling in love, and inducted to dismay.

You are my valour, Mother, signed upon this year;

terrible as an army, impregnable in array.

Sister Maura SSND

America.  April 1954

Used with permission

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[1] Lent: the forty days preceding Easter, marked by fasting and abstinence.

[2] Jonas III-7:8

[3] Have mercy