Another essential message presented to us as we received ashes is that we are to "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." Scripture often equates sin with darkness - the inability to see clearly, causing us to stumble around in this life with no clear direction; with no sure way to the truth that sets us free - free from enslaving deadly sin.

Left unchecked, with no repentance, our many collective individual sins metastasize into what St. Pope John Paul II called the "structures of sin" - those larger elements within our cultures, societies, governments and corporations that operate in the darkness of self-absorbed greed, power-lust, violence and indifference to suffering.

We desperately need to turn away from sin - both personal sin and the structures of sin. An honest look into many of our human-made institutions surely reveals decadent sinful structures that need conversion.

From abortion to war, from poverty and hunger to homelessness, from the refugee crisis to unfair trade agreements, from sweatshop labour to low frozen minimum wages, from the international arms trade to neighbourhood gun violence, from nuclear weapons to astronomical military budgets, from lack of affordable health care to COVID-19, from drug abuse to insufficient drug treatment facilities, from crumbling infrastructures to unemployment, from racism to human trafficking and from environmental pollution to climate change … it is undeniable that our world is deeply suffering from human-caused structures of sin.

As the world struggles to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic, we must even more importantly be determined to emerge - with the grace of God - from all of our structures of sin. Let us instead build structures worthy of human beings for the greater glory of God!

Our nation and our world desperately need a new standard to measure human progress: not gross national product, not the stock market and not military supremacy.

The new standard we need to creatively envision and fully implement is as old as the Sermon on the Mount and Christ's final judgment of the nations scene in Matthew's Gospel. And it's as modern as Catholic social teaching.

Pope Francis continues to urge us to see how all of humanity is interconnected. And that we are interconnected to all of creation. In order to survive and thrive, we need to join hands and hearts in prayer, and to tirelessly work together to build a world of love, social justice and peace.

Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

As we more faithfully walk in the Master's footsteps, we become more and more radiantly like him. And we begin to better understand and more fully live out his related challenge to us: "You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. … Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father."

There is no better time than Lent to "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel!"

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.

An IV dripped poison into my veins that would simultaneously cure me of the cancer in my body, and wreak havoc on it, sending waves of nausea, chills, malaise.

The concoction did not discriminate between healthy and cancer cells. It killed almost everything. This rendered me alive, but sick, bald, and weak.

As I sat looking out the shaded glass windows which overlooked the busy downtown area where I was receiving this treatment, I remember feeling amazed that as I sat, literally fighting for my life, my world falling apart, not only from cancer but being exhausted having just had a new baby right before my diagnosis, the rest of the world seemed not to care one bit.

People carried about their normal activities with no perception about my own personal agony. I watched businessmen in suits on the sidewalk below, hurrying to their destinations.

Women with bags of lunch from the deli were laughing as they scurried out of sight. A mother, unlike me, a seemingly healthy mother, was pushing a stroller with a child.

The sun rose and traveled across the sky in cheerful apathy to the deep suffering I experienced for six unbearably long hours each chemo session.

Flash forward.

Yesterday I was listening to a talk radio program. A teenager who had escaped without injury during the recent Las Vegas shooting had called into the show.

She was understandably quite traumatized. Her boyfriend had thrown his body on top of her then they got up and ran.

She was scared. She was heartbroken. She felt guilty that she was alive and others weren't. "The world is just going on around me and I can't get past this."

I completely understood.

The practicing psychotherapist talk show host kindly empathized with the girl then made a suggestion I thought was very wise. Continue reading

• Theresa Thomas is a Catholic mother of nine children. She lives in Indiana.

Many of Jesus' parables are introduced with, "The Kingdom of God is like..." and this Lent I've been reflecting on Jesus' story of the wheat and the weeds.

We all know it. The farmer sowed wheat and his workers wanted to pull up the darnel, a wild grass that grew amongst the grain. No, said the farmer. If you pull up the weeds, you will damage the wheat. Let them grow together until harvest time.

As one who is getting close to harvest time, I've been reflecting on the wisdom of the farmer, and the relationship of weeds to wheat.

I'm not going to dwell too much on sin except to define it as that messy stuff that grows amongst my best endeavours. And because weakness is a part of strength, I know I can't destroy it without damaging the gift I've been given.

Every gift has a shadow side: discernment can be judgmental, leadership can become controlling, love can be tainted with possessiveness. We all know how this works.

In the parable, the weeds were sown by the enemy. That enemy is sometimes personified as the devil. I prefer to rename it as the out-of-control ego. If we think about it, it's that rampant ME FIRST instinct that creates all evil in the world. But there is no way we can be rid of it.

The ego is a part of our primal animal instinct for survival and it has a useful role in our development. All we can do is try to manage it. This is why the church talks a lot about sin and reconciliation.

I grew up in a tradition that taught children about a judgemental and punishing God. As I grew older, I realised that the punishing God was a false god of human invention. It was replaced by the God of my experience, the God of unconditional love, and with that came a different understanding of sin.

I learned that good and evil were often mixed and which was which, sometimes depended on the point of view. It was good that the loving father killed the fatted calf for the prodigal son: it wasn't so good for the fatted calf.

The most important thing I learned was that my sins were wise teachers, and if I were perfect, I'd have no room for growth. So that's where the sacrament of reconciliation comes in. It encourages me to learn from the hard lessons of life school and it also helps me to cope with those weaknesses I can't change. It makes me deeply aware of my dependence on the loving God who created me.

It's very simple, really. When we walk with our beloved Jesus in the gospels, the darkness always serves the light.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.