The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
Clothing is good. It warms and protects, expresses and distinguishes, provides privacy, preserves modesty, and so on.
However, the first garments ever designed (a matching his and hers set of fig leaf briefs) served a very different purpose. As we read in Genesis, the sin of Adam and Eve opens their eyes and reveals to them their nakedness. In response, they scramble together some clothes and hide their shame from one another and from God.
The attempt of our first parents to hide their faults is an emblematic case study for us as we embark on the journey of Lent. After all, we ourselves are no strangers to sin, nor is the attempt to run from or become worthy of God’s mercy an unfamiliar notion. In fact, I’m reminded of all those many times in my life when I have tried to fix things on my own before turning to God’s mercy, to get ‘all dressed up’ before going to confession, or to clear my own conscience before asking a friend for forgiveness.
While dining with sinners, Jesus instructed the murmuring pharisees, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Just as it would be foolish to wait for the body to heal before visiting the doctor or to hide the body and its symptoms during a physical, so too it is foolish for us to hide our own wounds from the Divine Physician, Jesus Christ, who seeks to heal us and our relationship with Him.
Throughout Lent, we undertake practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We do these not to earn God’s mercy or to shield ourselves from God’s purifying gaze, but instead to grow in love, to strip away what keeps us from God and each other, and to trust more profoundly our relentlessly faithful and merciful Lord.
Stephen Barany is a designer and illustrator living in South Bend, IN. You can find out more about him and his work at stephenbarany.com.