According to the calendar, Ash Wednesday occurs this week and we begin another Lent.

Except for this year.

Lent actually began in 2007 for many thousands of families all across the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and we have been in a long and protracted season of Lent ever since. In what sense? The annual Lenten season calls us to reflect more deeply into our lives with God, to re-order our personal priorities according to the Gospel, and to live out increased personal sacrifice in our daily living.

With the economy continuing to spiral downwards day after day, with millions of jobs being eliminated, with people unable to make their house payments thus losing their homes, and with so many fearful of what tomorrow might bring --- we have truly been on a long Lenten journey over these past two years. Incredible difficulties have burdened families: parents ever fearful that they cannot provide for their children, the unknown financial calamity that lurks just around the corner, the awful feeling of being one paycheck away from complete financial meltdown.

In prior years when life and our financial security were far more predictable, Lent meant that we could choose which special sacrifices we wanted to undertake --- but just for six weeks, until Easter Sunday. And then back to normal.

But now we have a new reality: we aren't choosing our sacrifices this year, they have chosen us. And they aren't just for six weeks; they have been our burden for over 75 weeks now with no sign of relief in sight.

This reality makes Lent 2009 unique and gives us the opportunity to enter this year's Lenten journey from a fresh and life-giving spirit. Most Catholics in our Archdiocese do not need to select a special form of sacrifice this Lent; they already have more than their share. So, how do we act differently this year?

Let me suggest that we recall the origin of the word "sacrifice." It comes from two Latin words: sacrum and facere --- meaning "to make sacred." A sacrifice, then, is accepting an ongoing or new reality --- usually burdensome --- and turning that into something sacred, a source of God's love and grace.

For me personally, this Lent means embracing the new wearisome burdens, difficulties and unexpected hardships that have confronted me on my journey of life and faith. I can't pretend that these difficult burdens aren't there, nor can I try to somehow sneak around them and move on - neither approach works. What I must do is recognize them, embrace them, realize I can't carry them alone, and "make sacred" all that surrounds me.

On Ash Wednesday as the minister places ashes on our forehead, these words are said: "Repent and believe in the Gospel."

This year, those words have a far more profound meaning for me. "Repent" means putting aside my pride and my spirit of self-sufficiency, and realizing that the only life-giving path forward is to embrace humbly what surrounds me --- knowing ever more deeply that God is far more present to me in the midst of helplessness and weakness than when there are fewer challenges.

"Believe in the Gospel" means to listen daily to each Gospel of Lent, to enter into the many realities which Jesus encountered, to walk alongside Him as He embraces opposition, rejection, and seeming abandonment. It means that I am walking along with God's Son listening and observing Him deal with all that is on His path --- realizing that He, in turn, is right next to me on my own path of life.

But there's even more. Jesus never walks alone with just me; He walks with us as a family, as a community: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20).

For Lent 2009, each day I intend to offer my prayers and sacrifices of that day for a special group of co-disciples with Jesus: those out of work, families who have lost homes, parents who fear that they won't have the money needed for their children, the many who have lost health insurance, the retired people whose retirement funds have been severely diminished, and all who fear each tomorrow.

Let us all journey and pray together these next six weeks, "making sacred" our many sacrifices!