casual theology

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it feels like the past year has been one long Lent. The coronavirus pandemic began shutting down society just a couple weeks after Ash Wednesday last year. Since then, we have experienced prolonged times of imposed fasting and abstinence. It has felt like a long spiritual desert where our religious practices and community gatherings have been disrupted. Like Jesus in the wilderness, as a church and a nation we have experienced a season of temptations which we haven’t always resisted. Our faith in institutions, religious and secular, have been put to the test.   I listened to an interview on the radio about the impact that quarantines and shut-downs may have in the future as people’s habits—like dining out, traveling, or going to movies—have changed and they may not go back to some of those things as restrictions are lifted. The same can be said for churches. Many who may have been attending Mass out of habit or obligation have had the better part o