‘A golden hammer’

The headline is one that I have wanted to use for quite some time, and I feel that as we begin this Lenten season it is very fitting. You might wonder where I could be going with a headline that involves a hammer, but in a sense, hammers are something that we all can relate to, as most of us have one in our homes.

Growing up on the farm in Kit Carson, I can remember several of these, in fact I have two or three of the hammers my grandfather had.

Yes, they each have new handles, as each one has been well used. In fact, more than once I would be helping my grandfather repair something and he would swing the hammer, miss, and a couple of times it came up and hit me in the mouth. He would always expect me to be spitting out teeth, but fortunately this was never the case. I still use these hammers as I repair things today, as they work very well and remain very special.

Hammers are very handy, and a necessity. With this in mind, I invite you to think about a comment that I once heard: "If we were handed a Golden Hammer, and don’t treat it as such -- as extraordinary -- then it simply is just another ordinary hammer."

As we enter into these 40 days of lent and prepare to celebrate the Easter Triduum, I invite you to reflect on this. The Easter celebration is the high point of our liturgical year. Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection is our golden hammer. Lent is the time of year that prepares us to recognize more deeply God’s unconditional love and it helps us move more deeply into Christ’s Paschal Mystery.

So, as we take this pilgrimage through these 40 days, I invite you to take steps to help lead our young people more deeply into Christ’s Paschal Mystery.

I invite you to help them more deeply understand the focus of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. I invite you to help them more clearly see the Golden Hammer awaiting us at the end of this journey.