An Algorithm of Faith

I’ve never experienced a more powerful symbol of Lent than on social media this week. The algorithms used to populate our feeds are as mysterious, which leaves so much room for the Holy Spirit to deliver precisely what we need. One morning, I woke to the incredibly tragic news that a close friend and amazing musician had succumbed to his battle with cancer. The outpouring of love, support, musical prayer, and condolence was impossible to view without a surge of emotion. After reading and offering my messages, I continued to scroll. The following post was from another close friend and fantastic dancer who just gave birth to her beautiful new son. The outpouring of love, support, musical prayer, and congratulations was the same.

It reminded me of Nadia Bolz-Weber’s image of Ash Wednesday: If our lives were a long piece of fabric with our baptism on one end and our funeral on another, and we don’t know the distance between the two, then Ash Wednesday is a time when that fabric is pinched in the middle, and the ends are held up so that our baptism in the past and our funeral in the future meet.

In this season of Lent, St. Monica has something daily to help you pinch your sacramental life together (stmonica.net/lent). Whether in struggle or joy, certainty or question—all we ask is for your presence. The holy spirit will fill your feed with her algorithm of faith. That faith is alive and well at St. Monica—delivered by each of you. Be loved: in this place