Making Easter More Colorful

By Sarah Chivers

Every year as we approach Lent, I tell myself I'm going to give up social media. It often drains my happiness and more importantly, it drains the time I spend with my family, outdoors, reading a good book, etc. But it doesn't take long for me to remember that my job revolves around social media - there's not much that I can do to avoid it. So I choose something else to give up or I add a special spiritual something to my daily life and still feel bogged down by my inability to avoid social media throughout Lent.

But I may have discovered a solution.

I recently read a blog article about the idea of 'First World Penances.' The writer goes into detail about how he altered his phone's settings to make everything appear in grayscale. Every text, photo, app - colorless. It took the joy and excitement from his phone.

I'd like to imagine that it gets boring pretty quickly, seeing everything in only shades of gray. He's right - it sucks the beauty out of pictures. How much quicker would we put our phones down if there wasn't anything flashy to escape the stresses of life with? How much brighter and happier would the living world around us be if technology wasn't so colorful? 

So as the person behind Our Lady of Light social media, I thought to myself... if life around us were that much brighter without color on our phones, how much more beautiful would the resurrection be if our social media went grayscale for Lent? If all of our photos through Lent were only visible in gray, how much more meaningful would color be for our Christian story as Jesus is risen from the dead?

So this year, Our Lady of Light social media will be going grayscale for the duration of Lent. We want our community to remember the solemn journey we are on towards the cross and rejoice the resurrection more fully with the celebration of the Easter Vigil. As we approach Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season, know that our parish staff is praying for you!