View the video reflection for Ash Wednesday from our President & CEO, Rev. Patrick J. McDevitt, CM, PhD. The text of the reflection is available below.
Welcome to Saint Luke Institute. I’m glad you’re here and able to share this video with us. I’d like to begin with a reading from the prophet Joel. And this is the first reading for Ash Wednesday. And I’m going to read just a portion of that reading. “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.”
Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the sacred season of Lent, which means “springtime,” that is, new life, renewed life. And we prepare our hearts and our souls for the great solemnity of Easter. The Lenten Season spans 40 days, reminiscent of the 40 years the Israelites wandered in the desert as so to prepare their hearts and souls for the new Promised Land. The 40 days of Lent parallels Jesus’s 40 days in the desert, where he prepared himself for his coming ministry.
Any kind of springtime requires a clearing, a purging, a cleaning in order to plant the seeds of new life to come. Springtime readies the ground and brings forth life. The preparations of the ground is not done by denying the soil or depriving the soil. In fact, springtime preparation is about clearing the debris, giving gentle, nurturing attention to the soil that enfolds the seedlings and the ground in a gentle warmth, guarding the life awakening beneath the soil.
Lent is not about deprivation. It is about a dislocation, meaning to intentionally step out of our ordinary life, to expose our addictions, dependencies, illusions, and false securities in order that we can see here and know what is most essential in our lives. It is getting back to essentials, like the Israelites in the desert. Our 40 days is about clearing the ground in the Promised Land, which means the Promised Land of knowing who we truly are; knowing where we come from and where we are going. Most importantly, the Promised Land shows us who we are. That we are the children of God.
These 40 days provides us with some grace that the desert was for Jesus, a profound clarity and conviction about our ministry and mission in this world, which is to be a disciple and apostle of Jesus Christ. I believe this for this Lent, more than any other Lenten season. This time in the desert; the last decade, the last year, and the last several months, we have witnessed so much rage, vitriol, violence and war everywhere – at home and in the world. The one word that has consistently emerged in my prayer is the Hebrew word Shalom. I have spent much of my prayer time recently just repeating the word “Shalom.” Tt has given me a profound experience of calm and peace in that one word.
Shalom means peace. It means wholeness. It means right relationship. The means to Shalom is in the desert, where there is no surplus, no distraction or illusion or control. The desert provides the needed space to listen to God, whose language is silence and Shalom. Silence and Shalom is the language of God. My heart and spirit deeply longs for Shalom. Does your heart long for Shalom? Once we encounter Shalom, then we can bless our families, our friends, coworkers, and the whole world with the gift of Shalom.
Today, February 12th, 2026 [the recording date], Buddhist monks from Texas completed a 108 day, 2300 mile walk for peace that concludes it here in Annapolis, Maryland. Their journey, their desert wanderings for 108 days was a spiritual prayer offering for all of us and for the whole world. To find peace. To find Shalom. What a gift!
And as that first line of that beautiful 1955 song, “Let there Be Peace on Earth” says, “Let peace begin with me.” We are called this land into the desert, into the quiet, into the silence to encounter the gift and shalom of God himself.
On behalf of all of us at Saint Luke Institute, may this Lenten season illuminate you and all those you love with Shalom rabah, which means “abundant peace.” Thank you and God bless.