Nine years ago I was introduced to a 72 year old Catholic ex-nun. We had several opportunities together before one day she called and asked if I would consider being her spiritual advisor.

It is okay to laugh…..I did.

I am not the spiritual advisor type. Somehow, it felt right to start spending time with this friend on a regular basis. We now spend an hour together on most Monday mornings and have for the past nine years. It is always an interesting time. We are different people and we challenge each other is different ways. During Lent each year, our Monday mornings center on what we are learning from the Lenten season.

This year my friend decided not to participate in the typical Catholic practice of giving up something for Lent, but instead decided to heighten her awareness of God’s gifts around her in a special way and to journal as much as possible. This past Monday we had an interesting discussion about her experience with Lent this year. She found herself writing something everyday, but not really writing with purpose or passion. She lamented the fact that Lent seemed to be ignored in her faith community and it was not as it was growing up in a Catholic neighborhood in New York City. There her peers in school and the community around her went to mass everyday and life revolved around participation in Lent in very visible, concrete ways. Things change. She now lives in a county where Catholics are a minority. With a shortage of priests among Catholics, the local Catholic parish now shares a priest with the larger Catholic community 10 miles away. This ended the daily mass for the local parish and I know that not having a priest available in the community is difficult for the parish.

As my friend reflected on why she was feeling detached from Lent this year, she commented that the one thing she appreciated and experienced here in Indiana that she did not experience in New York City was fellowship over coffee and rolls each Sunday morning after mass. She felt that time together in the parish hall was a continuation of the Eucharist the faith community just celebrated. Then she admitted that if she had to choose between her Lenten experience growing up in a Catholic neighborhood in New York City and the experience of coffee and rolls on Sunday mornings with this faith community, she would probably choose the fellowship and communion of coffee and rolls.

I am a Quaker and I do not lean towards the liturgical. My relationship with Christ is experiential and the physical often distracts me. You can imagine the interesting conversations on Monday mornings between a Catholic ex-nun and a Quaker. For my friend the center of mass, worship and the center of her life and her relationship with God revolves around Eucharist. It is good for me to hear how this moment in the celebration of mass connects her to Christ. For me, it is in the silence and centering of the gathered meeting that I experience Christ and communion. I have spent most of my life among programmed Friends and thankfully with faith communities who appreciate and nurture periods of silence and open worship during the programmed meeting. For me, the essence of worship lies not with the sermon, the music, vocal prayers or the physical things that happen in worship, but with the power and life of communion in the gathered silence with the faith community.

I am always surprised when I hear someone say silence in worship feels empty. I have rarely experienced an empty silence. When I am alone, I cherish silence because it gives me time to think and to center. In those moments of silence, God nudges me into conversation in thoughts and prayers. When I am in worship, I find the silence even deeper and richer. It is a time when the community gathers into the center of God’s presence. In that Presence the community experiences communion, guidance, Christ’s reconciling love and peace…together.

Lent is normally a time of giving up something, a time of self-denial and penitence in preparation for Holy Week. I understand this preparation and all it symbolizes for the Church and I understand my friend’s longing to be a part of community in this preparation. My friend’s frustration with Lent this year opened my eyes to see how important community is to the Church.

There is power in the shared experience of the crucifixion. The agony of the cross was Christ’s alone to bear, but it was shared and witnessed by a community whose lives where changed and transformed by Christ’s presence and ministry, and who gradually came to understand the incredible sacrifice of that moment. The power of the resurrection lies in the community who witnessed the empty tomb and walked beside the living Christ. The life of the Church for over 2000 years is the power of a community transformed by the crucifixion, a community who walks beside the living Christ day by day.

My personal experience with Christ transformed my life. But the power of this Lenten season and the joy of the Easter celebration is about more than my own personal spiritual experience, my spiritual journey or my personal relationship with God. The gift of Lent lies in its power to transform the world through a community where Christ’s presence and power, where Christ’s reconciling love and peace are made visible every day of the year.