March 27, 2009
Finding a way to stay in touch with people and God
Irene Moschner has found a way to stay connected to people and God during Lent. She writes a letter a day to someone on her Christmas card list, telling them “why I value them, what I love about them.” (Message photo by Paul R. Leingang) Click for a larger version.
By MARY ANN HUGHES (Message staff writer)
Several years ago when Irene Moschner was a parishioner at St. John the Baptist Church in Newburgh, she listened to her pastor Father Joseph Ziliak explain that the season of Lent should be less about giving something up and more about centering yourself spiritually.
She took his message to heart, and decided to transform her own Lenten walk from a negative experience into a positive one. “I was so busy, a single mom, and when I sent my Christmas cards they only had two or three lines to people.”
She decided to pick one person a day from her Christmas card list and write a “full letter to them, to put into words why I value them, what I love about them.”
She chose friends from high school and college, even a woman she met in the first grade who now lives in Louisiana. She handwrote each letter on purple and pink paper, “a Lenten kind of look.”
As the tradition has grown, now — instead of facing a time of deprivation — she looks forward to Lent. “I have time to myself, and I pray for them while I’m writing the letters. I ask God to watch over them.
“I try to make it a good letter, with open-ended questions.” About half of the recipients respond with an e-mail or a phone call. “That why I get phone calls back,” she said, “because I ask about their kids and their spouses.”
This year she’s added a little something extra to her Lenten activities. She heard that because of the current financial situation, many people feel their lives are in chaos. She also learned that to combat that feeling, “it’s important to make your home feel like a haven. Clutter makes your home feel chaotic,” she believes, so she is going through each closet and deep cleaning, making her place “a haven, a safe, comfortable place to be.”
During the last several years, when Easter arrives, she believes she has a different awareness than many Catholics. “I haven’t deprived myself during Lent. I don’t come to Easter feeling that I haven’t had something.
“I’ve gotten in touch with people and God. It’s a growing thing rather than a deprivation. My heart feels really full.”