I know that you acted in ignorance. Surprising fruits of Lent

...”You denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. The author of Life was put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses...Now, I know, brothers and sisters, that you acted in ignorance, just as your leaders did; but God has brought to fulfillment what he had announced though the mouth of all the prophets...

I italicized the words credited to St. Peter from the Thursday, April 5^th reading because they seemed to shout at me as I sat listening to them during daily Mass three days ago. Eerily completing a tapestry of understanding from these Lenten, Triduum and Easter Octave holy days. It‘s as if it has been infused into my heart, all of a piece.

That tapestry of understanding has to do with a unique appreciation for ignorance, will of God and trust. Just the single word ‘understanding’ isn’t big enough to describe it.

Like for each of the twenty Lents that I have experienced since my conversion to Catholicism, I had a long list of all the reading I planned to plough through during these past forty days. And a renewed commitment to the Wednesday and Friday bread and water fasting that I’d begun during a pilgrimage to Medjugorje, along with the usual list of promises of fewer distractions at prayer and more charity.

But this year, to my surprise, I listed them at Confession a few days before Ash Wednesday. The reply of the priest shocked me. Instead of a nod and penance, Father Chris merely said, “That’s quite a long list.” And looked at me patiently.

A bit edgy now, I smiled uncomfortably and said something like, “Yeah, I can be a little OC...” still expecting the penance, after all, it was close to the end of the time for Confession. After suggesting I shorten my list, and try fasting just on Fridays, the priest regarded me. “For your penance, consider how you can do small things with great fervor.” Smiling, he said, “My spiritual director is a Carmelite. Some days, I say only two decades of the Rosary.”

I suspect that he was not the first to make this suggestion to me. But this year, I heard it in a way I had not before. Therefore the seeds for these splendid realizations were sown. That phrase, “consider how you can do small things with great fervor,” echoed in my mind and heart for most of Lent, affecting everything: Prayer, sacred reading, and ordinary life.

• Ignorance.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m a convert. Through the years, I have learned that people like me frequently think differently about this Catholic faith than do those of you who were born into it. More fervor-even zeal and gratitude are only a couple of items on a very long list. Because of this, I have been alternately angry, sorrowful and frustrated with my brothers and sisters who cannot see what I see. Thursday’s reading obliterated those emotions.

GONE.

Why? Of course, this was not the first time I had read and heard those words. Hardly. And yet, this time, they climbed into my heart and lay down. But why did they not sink in many years before? I’ll get to the real reason I think that is so in a moment, but first, the more obvious reason.

Here was Peter, witness to the horrors of the Passion, terrified for his own and for the lives of his family calmly, confidently, saying,

Now, I know, brothers and sisters, that you acted in ignorance, just as your leaders did;

How can I possibly judge another because he or she lacks the wholly unmerited understanding I have been given?

• Will of God.

On Holy Saturday, I read an article that became the second chunk of this tapestry of understanding.  In an article in The Catholic Thing, one of Cardinal Newman’s homiles was cited. In his lucid, explicit coherent prose, Newman writes about the decision of God to work through the few rather than the many in a homily called, Witnesses of the Resurrection. Consider his words:

"Him God raised up the third day, and showed Him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead." Acts x. 40, 41.

It might have been expected, that, on our Saviour's rising again from the dead, He would have shown Himself to very great numbers of people, and especially to those who crucified Him; whereas we know from the history, that, far from this being the case, He showed Himself only to chosen witnesses, chiefly His immediate followers; and St. Peter avows this in the text. This seems at first sight strange.”

But the great scholar challenges us to ponder what would have happened had Christ displayed a public miracle on the scale of the parting of the Red Sea or Fatima:

Now consider what would have been the probable effect of a public exhibition of His resurrection. Let us suppose that our Saviour had shown Himself as openly as before He suffered; preaching in the Temple and in the streets of the city; traversing the land with His Apostles, and with multitudes following to see the miracles which He did. What would have been the effect of this? Of course, what it had already been. His former miracles had not effectually moved the body of the people; and, doubtless, this miracle too would have left them as it found them, or worse than before. They might have been more startled at the time; but why should this amazement last? When the man taken with a palsy was suddenly restored at His word, the multitude were all amazed, and glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, "We have seen strange things today." [Luke v. 26.] What could they have said and felt more than this, when "one rose from the dead"? In truth, this is the way of the mass of mankind in all ages, to be influenced by sudden fears, sudden contrition, sudden earnestness, sudden resolves, which disappear as suddenly.

• Trust

I suspect that I’m not alone in fearing the fate of loved ones of this world, upon reading about the latest horror being visited upon people and all of creation. Or in wondering just what we can do, how can we help lighten the view of those who seem lost in darkness, who feel the need to do something, anything...because to be honest, we simply lack faith, trust in God. We calibrate events and people with human understanding. In so doing, we run the risk of joining the masses who are moved one way and then another. Newman explains:

The blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church. "Fret not thyself" then "because of evil doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good … delight thyself also in Him, and He shall give thee the desires of thy heart; commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass … He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noon-day … A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholdeth the righteous … I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay-tree, yet he passed away, and, lo! he was not; yea, I sought him, and he could not be found." [Ps. xxxvii. 1-6, 16, 17, 35, 36.] The heathen world made much ado when the Apostles preached the Resurrection. They and their associates were sent out as lambs among wolves; but they prevailed.