Something different this Lent
Aidan Mathews, former RTÉ producer, playwright and poet, wrote an online Lenten retreat for Irish Jesuit Communications back in 2017. IJC chose the theme of the ‘reign’ or ‘kingdom’ of God as described in Jesus’ parables in the gospel of Matthew. Aidan had previously written and presented a series of Sunday night reflections for radio, based on Matthew’s gospel. His unique, provocative, sometimes startling style that spoke to the hearts of listeners to RTE 1, is happily evident in his six-week Lenten retreat, which we now offer this Lent. It’s Year A of the Church’s liturgical calendar so most of the Sunday readings for this 2026 season will be from the gospel of Matthew.
In his introduction to the ‘retreat’, Aidan kindly warns the potential retreatant: “If you are looking for clarity and hygienic clear-headedness in what follows, you had better Google another internet site, for we cannot answer the mystery when it questions us. We can only reply, and we do so, when we do so, in the upheaval and downfall of our own baffled existence.”
So, for those who venture into the first week of the retreat he offers, he first suggests an exercise in stillness. But he looks with suspicion not only on the possibility of ever reaching stillness but also on the reason for attaining it. “It is not about robes. It is not about gongs. It is not about chanting matins or mantras. The time is never right, and the place is never perfect. Even the most righteous of rites can deteriorate into trickery and mere technique, for prayerfulness, which fumigates the wistful list above, is always, by definition, a precarious state. We can never coincide completely with ourselves…”
For weeks one and two of Lent, Aidan delves into the parables of the sowers. Aidan uses his creativity and freedom of speech to ‘prey’ on the gospel text – agitate it, pluck at it, so to speak. The sower’s way of sowing seed, he insists, is “plain weird and pretty wasteful.” Then he attempts to ‘pray’ on it, a more porous, receptive response, using his own experience in radio: “These days we want absolutely everything we transmit to be thought through, to be targeted, to hit home, to boost a bumper harvest, to capitalise its full potential. But that has nothing to do with the Kingdom of Heaven.” It is through these provocative and thoughtful reflections that retreatants are challenged to see the world with new eyes this Lent.
So if you’re ready to ‘pray’ this retreat for Lent, click here to access the stillness exercise and all the material of the first week »
Click here for the gospel reading of Lent week 2 »
Click here for the reflection for Lent week 2 »
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