LETTER FROM KATIE • March 11, 2026
Vincent van Gogh, Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate), 1890, Oil on Canvas, 80 cm × 64 cm (31.5 in × 21.2 in)
Dear Holy Comforter,
Lent carries a quiet sorrow. As we slow down and pray, we begin to see more clearly the ways we have turned from God and from one another. That realization can bring a certain sadness—not the sadness of despair, but the sorrow of love.
Yet this sorrow is a grace. It softens the heart and draws us closer to Jesus, who walks the road toward the cross. In his company, our sorrow becomes a doorway: a place where repentance deepens, mercy is received, and hope quietly begins to grow.
We’re going to have two opportunities to pass through this Lenten doorway from sorrow to hope this week.
First, tomorrow night at 7 pm, we’ll gather for Evening Prayer at HMC with our brothers and sisters from Incarnation Anglican. We will meditate on Jesus’ offer to feed us as the living bread from heaven and offer space for silence, lament, thanks, and intercession for our world and ourselves. (We’ll also gather again for evening prayer on Thursday, March 26 at 7 pm at Beverley Hills United Methodist Church in Alexandria, VA.)
Second, on Sunday, we’ll consider the fourth step of the Examen prayer: Sorrow.
Ignatius of Loyola invites us in the Examen prayer to look honestly at both our personal and human sin—but always in the presence of God, who continues to create, sustain, and love us. From this insight comes the idea that we are loved sinners. Awareness of our sin is not meant to plunge us into self-hatred or despair. Instead, it opens our eyes to something even greater: the depth and constancy of God’s mercy.
As you take time to review your days, I invite you to pay attention to where God has felt present or absent, what led you close to God, and what distracted you and pulled you away from God. These will be helpful reflections to bring to our confession of our need for God’s mercy on Sunday.
I love this poem from Malcolm Guite, which is his interpretation of Psalm 95, the psalm we read last Sunday, and which I think beautifully ties together these themes of sorrow, mercy, and hope.
XCV Venite, exultemus
For equal rights and justice, cry out loud!
Then come before God’s presence and be glad,
And harden not your hearts. Do not be proud,
But kneel before your maker, for he made
You for himself and also for each other,\
To share his good gifts equally. Our God
Is everyone’s salvation, and our Father
Is Lord and father equally to all.
Let us rejoice before him, let him gather
The scattered tribes and nations back from all
The corners of the earth, and also from
The wilderness of willfulness. His call
To bring our lives, and our whole world to him
Resounds in all of us. Could we but hear,
Our Saviour, King and Shepherd calls us home.
How is the Examen going for you this Lent? Is Lent stirring up anything that you’d like to pray about? Just reach out and we’ll find a time to get together.
With much love,
Katie
