There are many who work in the field of ministry and approach important liturgical seasons not solely out of prayerful piety, but as professionals whose job it is to accompany others spiritually. As a result, it’s easy to get burned out, to lose sight of the importance of the season, to muddle through as a professional while missing the relevance for the personal.
This image of the “professional” Catholic can be helpful. This image exaggerates what we all feel, what we’re all called to, no matter our jobs or vocations. This balancing act between the spiritual and the temporal is one we all struggle with as we try to bring fresh eyes to old traditions — whether Lent is literally your business or not.
That’s why, for this Lenten season, we’ve invited six “professional” Catholics to join our limited audio series “The Work of Lent” to reflect on how they keep the season fresh, how they inject new creativity into these 40 days and how they deal with burnout. Tasked as ever with finding God in all things, we will search for the ways in which God is speaking to us anew through this season of ancient rituals. Each episode will center on a Lenten theme, one which our guests will explore through an original Examen prayer, and include a deep dive into what it means to grapple with our vocations with joy.
Listen to the series below and subscribe to “AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast” to receive new episodes as they drop each Friday of Lent.
