Faith and Family / Sean Gallagher

Grind of Lent, and of life, finds fulfillment in a symphony of joy

For more than 10 years now, each of my five sons in turn have taken piano or guitar lessons. Most of the time, my wife Cindy has been the one to take our boys to their weekly 30-minute lessons.

As our younger children have gotten older, with Colin being the youngest at 11, our family’s life has gotten busier. So, it wasn’t surprising recently when Cindy wondered aloud to me if maybe it was time for music lessons to be put to the side.

Philip is the last of our children still taking lessons, switching to guitar after studying piano for several years.

Cindy understandably thought that this might be a way to ease our burdened family schedule. After all, Philip is 15 and has already reaped many benefits from honing his musical talents. Maybe that was enough.

But one recent evening, Philip was working in our living room through the chord progression of the song “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and, knowing the song pretty well myself, I sang it as he played. As we repeated it a few times, and Philip got more comfortable with the chords, I started to sing with real gusto.

After we finished the song one last time, Cindy, who had been working nearby in our kitchen, came into the living room with tears in her eyes. Hearing Philip playing so well and him and me making music together so joyfully helped her poignantly realize anew why it was still good for us to be taking him weekly to his lessons.

This wasn’t the first time that beautiful music has filled our family home through the years. But this time it came at a providential moment for us. It helped Cindy and me see how God leads us to many blessings through the grind of being committed, day in and day out, to the good of our boys.

There are so many days when parents don’t see the payoff from such a commitment. And to be honest, God gives us no assurance that we’ll ever see the fruits of our labors in this life.

But he does promise that if, with the help of his ever-present grace, we remain faithful to him through that daily grind that life so often is, we will experience a symphony of infinite joy in his heavenly home where he will welcome us into his great family of faith.

And not only that, we’ll take up our own part in the music of this family that will be beautiful beyond our imagining. It will be a part for which God has prepared us through the endless music lessons we experience, in the ups and downs in being faithful through life to the vocation for which he has created us.

The season of Lent that the Church will begin next week can be an image for us of this grinding journey through life. It can feel so long at times, and the sacrifices we embrace on Ash Wednesday can seem difficult and without much reward along the way.

But God lovingly invites us to fidelity to the challenges of Lent that come at us day to day, hour to hour or even minute to minute. He’s there to help us every step along the way with his loving grace. And then there’s the promise that we’ll experience the joy of Christ’s resurrection at the end of it.

So, start your journey through Lent knowing that, while it will be filled with one lesson after another in humility and lots of practicing of the virtue of sacrifice, it will all end in us taking our part in singing a beautiful Easter alleluia. †