I have come to see these 40 days leading up to Easter not only in the liturgies that arise from them or in the meager fasting obligations the Church asks of us Catholics, but also in the way I see those around me. Lent has become for me more about awareness of the human condition and the very people I encounter who reflect it.
Lent is in the face of my friend Blue, who, as a schizophrenic with a limited IQ and a past of thievery, is finally off the streets, out of prison and in a group home up in Elon. I will be with him some in these 40 days and his laugh will lead me to Easter.
Lent is in the face of the man in a church basement meeting who says for the very first time, "My name's Joe, and I'm an alcoholic."
It is in the beautiful range of the faces of autism in our families and in the blessed faces of our Down Syndrome citizens, 90 percent of whom, when the mother tests positive, are killed in the womb. Joy hides in Lent just as it shines in the eyes of those lovely babies who make it out alive to teach their parents how to live.
Lent is in the face of the man in the aftermath of a stroke who is walking ever so slowly the indoor track at the YMCA, courageously bringing himself back to his family and friends with God's help, one very small step at a time.
It is also in the face of the older gentleman at the back of the church just before morning Mass, emptying his change for the week in the poor box.
It is in the refugee mother staring across a rickety skiff at her young son, his yearning eyes a desperate prayer.
Lent is in the curious and eager faces of the RCIA candidates and catechumens who are walking these 40 days step by step to the front of the church to receive Our Lord in the great miracle of the Eucharist and thus into the eternal grace of our Holy Mother Church.
It is in the faces of all the sorrowful, watching loved ones being ravaged by cancer, unable to protect their fragile mortality or ease their pain, or in the face of aching loneliness in the newest widow, who still calls a spouse's name or reaches across to the empty place in the bed at night.
I see the face of Lent in the figures of the Stations of the Cross, frozen there in the agonizing hours of Christ's Passion and in His face staring at me over the years from the gifted hands of Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Rubens, Hofmann, Murillo, El Greco and Chagall.
Accordingly, Lent is in all our mirrors, in our honest contrition, in our resolute hope, in our silent apologies and in our silent forgiveness.
Lent is here to make me aware of the "sacrament of the moment," to remind me to cry out like the psalmist for my God to cleanse me and to hide His face from my faults so that my humbled bones may rejoice. It tells me that all I encounter has God's seed and that to love is to suffer. Lent also says to me that our suffering will end and we will be rendered white as snow.
And I have finally, I think, found out that Lent is itself the transforming face of Easter.
Fred Gallagher is editor-in-chief at Good Will Publishers Inc. and an author and former addictions counselor. He and his wife Kim are members of St. Patrick Cathedral in Charlotte.