The Aroma of Lent

Sr. Margaret Kerry, FSP, ponders how our sense of smell awakens our memories and invites us to ponder God's mysteries.

Smell is a gift. After my bout with Covid19 I lost the ability to smell. To test this loss, I tried to smell lavender. Nothing. I sprayed Lysol. Nothing. I breathed in deeply. Nothing. Four weeks later I woke to the smell of bacon. The aroma reached all the way to my third-floor room as a cloud of invitation, a whiff of the cloud of unknowing. A delectable invitation to the spiritual mystery of God ever present.

It awakened a memory of mom and dad making breakfast on Sunday mornings. A remembrance of self-giving love for their six children. A table set with love, the peace of knowing love, of rising to love, of eating love, of contemplating love.

These things are good images of what we really desire. ... They are not the thing themselves; they are the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited. (Aslan in The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis).

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This Lent I want to elicit memory of our Father’s home, the home we crave that we have never seen. A home where many of our loved ones are now found. May I be that fragrance of Christ triggering a memory of God’s open arms, a Eucharistic table set, a promise that will last forever.

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This Lent I want to elicit memory of our Father’s home, the home we crave that we have never seen. #catholicmom

God carve bark from the tree of my life as Frankincense is sculpted from a tree, to reveal golden nuggets. Add these with the dust of my intentions, my shaved sacrifices and the impurity of my sin, that seem like sedimentary coal. Make these combustible, sparked by Your Spirit to create the sweetest aroma of Your presence in a waking world.

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