Debris-covered heart

Karl Rahner was a 20th century Jesuit whose writings, sermons and correspondence shared Vatican II. In an Ash Wednesday sermon, he talked about estrangement from God and how Lent serves as a moment in the church liturgical calendar to stop and recenter out lives.

"Since feeling distant from God in our debris-covered heart is the ultimate bitterness of our life’s Lenten season, it is appropriate to ask what can be done about it and, along the same lines, how the church’s liturgical season of Lent is to be lived.  For when the bitter distance from God turns into holy worship, the Lenten season of the world is transformed into the Lenten season of the church."

Lenten sermon