Welcoming & Embracing the Stranger: Lenten Reflections with the Artwork of James Tissot

February 18, 2026 - Ash Wednesday

“Then the Lord was concerned for his land and took pity on his people” (1st Reading, Joel 2:18).

Like the father of the Prodigal Son, the Father welcomes us home with great love. He meets us where we are, as painter James Tissot suggests, by moving the scene from the parable's original setting to his own time and place: the Port of London in the Victorian era. He meets us even as we have strayed, even to the point of estranging ourselves from the Father who is both our love and our true home. The Father welcomes us home.  

Lent is a time for us to remember where—indeed, who—our true home is. The focus on prayer that is part of Lent helps us to go deep into our hearts, the place of meeting where the Holy Spirit dwells. Almsgiving and fasting, in whatever form they take, adapted to the circumstances of our lives and those with whom we interact, help us to allow the Holy Spirit to dislodge our worldly attachments so that we may see clearly our need to “be reconciled to God” (2nd Reading, 2 Corinthians 5:20). 

Then Lent will help bring us home. Indeed, Lent will be the springtime to which the Old English roots of the word point, referring to the lengthening of days as they do. The discipline of Lent will fall into the background, and we will embrace the work of Lent with a taste of the joy with which the Father embraces us as he welcomes us home, bringing us “the joy of [his] salvation” (Responsorial Psalm, Ps 51:14). 

Lent is about penance, but it is also about baptism, as the Second Vatican Council teaches us (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, no. 109). True penance (nos. 109-110), which leads us to “cry” “out of the depths” of our being, “A clean heart create for me, O God” (Ps 30:1; Responsorial Psalm, Ps 51:12), opens us to the work of the Holy Spirit, who renews the gift of the baptism we have received (and prepares the elected catechumens for the Easter sacraments). In this, we know the fullness of the hospitality of the Father: through his Son Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, we are beloved adopted daughters and sons (Rom 8:14-16; Gal 4:5), truly at home in the communion of the Holy Trinity and with one another in the mystical body of Christ. 

Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting this campaign of Christian service, so that, as we take up battle against spiritual evils, we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. (Roman Missal)

Rev. Msgr. Gerard McCarren, Rector/Dean, and Associate Professor of Systematic Theology

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