lenten role modeling

it snuck up on me again this year.

but today is ash wednesday.

i let my students out of class five minutes early and cancelled my office hours so that i could make mass at noon.

one of my students approached me as i was erasing the blackboard and asked if i was going to the university catholic center. i tell her, yes, and she says, "i'll go with you."

we walk across campus together, me in my black pumps, she in her sneakers. it doesn't occur to me to be uncomfortable while we are walking. not even when we enter the sanctuary and bless ourselves with holy water. it's when we take our seats and kneel to pray that i begin to feel awkward.

this is not a separation of church and state issue for me. it's just that my practices of faith are generally very private.

i go to church every sunday by myself; my family is all in california. i've become accustomed to praying with no one watching. singing amidst people who don't really know who i am. and i've come to appreciate my religious privacy. it helps me to focus on the Mass, on my prayers.

but this afternoon, i felt extremely self-conscious praying and singing alongside my student.

i have to think, though, that this is the reason it's important for me to be a university professor. i want my students to see me teaching their university classes and to think that we are similar. we are mexican american. we are women. we are catholic. and we are professors.

so i swallowed my discomfort and participated in the Ash Wednesday celebration alongside my student.
and afterward i accepted her invitation to accompany her for a lenten lunch. ;)

@>-->>---