March 4, 2025

Hello Everyone –

As you receive this edition of The Branches, we stand on the cusp bridging Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) and the beginning of the season of Lent with the celebration of Ash Wednesday.

On one hand, we ponder the poetic words of Gertrud Mueller Nelson as she writes in her “Festive Days” reflection:

After the carnival feasting, after the last games and the dances, we sing our final Alleluia and we sing it in rounds. Then we bury it in a deep chest. The Alleluia that we bury is first lettered on a long scroll and decorated with spring flowers by all the participants. We will not hear or use this expression of greatest joy until it is sung again during the Easter night. Then we settle down. We remove some of our silliness and gather for community night prayer. Drawing the revelry to a close, we face into tomorrow’s Ash Wednesday. We offer one another a sign of peace and best wishes for a holy and fruitful Lent. With that, we begin a great silence. Everything is cleaned up, and everybody moves about collecting belongings, but no one speaks a word.
      — taken from “At That Time: Cycles and Seasons in the Life of a Christian”

On the other, we hear the sobering words from the Prophet Joel:

Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God.

It’s time once again to enter into the days that are not only marked with ash but that call us to reorder our inner selves with the assistance of prayer, fasting and the giving of alms. And when we end this Lenten path and once more stand at the empty tomb, how will we have spiritually matured, deepened in faith and grown closer to the giver of all good gifts? The angels at the tomb are waiting to ask each of us: “Why are we looking for the living one among the dead?”

Please join me in prayer over these coming weeks with the words of St. Bonaventure:

Lord, Holy Father,
show us what kind of man it is who is hanging for our sakes on the cross,
whose suffering causes the rocks themselves
to crack and crumble with compassion,
whose death brings the dead back to life.
Let my heart crack and crumble at the sight of him.
Let my soul break apart with compassion for his suffering.
Let it be shattered with grief at my sins for which he dies.
And finally let it be softened with devoted love for him.
Amen.

As I do for you, please pray for me,

Most Reverend Jeffrey S. Grob
Archbishop of Milwaukee