Ever since the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer received the icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in 1866 from Pope Pius IX, Redemptorists have eagerly accepted the invitation of the pontiff to “make her known.” Devotion to Our Mother of Perpetual Help began in Europe but soon accompanied missionaries to the New World. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the image began to appear in country chapels, urban cathedrals, and the homes of Catholics throughout the Western Hemisphere.

On Good Friday afternoon I got to church early and found myself alone. The parish staff and die-hard congregants had been out in the neighborhood since lunchtime, braving the damp chill for Urban Stations of the Cross, and choir practice for the 3:00 pm service wasn’t scheduled to start for a little while. Not only was I alone in church, but I was more alone than on any other day of the year, as the tabernacle sat empty behind the altar, doors gaping wide.

Although I could have sought out the repository in the small chapel next door, I was surprised to find myself undisturbed by the empty tabernacle. The cold, silent Friday church was still buzzing with Thursday’s warmth and rejoicing, and even that was just a subdued preview of the jubilation awaiting us Saturday night at the Easter Vigil. And so the empty tabernacle, though jarring, did not drive me away.

Remember the mending basket? We used to stuff things into it: the shirt that needed a button, the pants with a ripped seam, the sock with a hole in the toe. It has probably become a sad relic by now—who has time to darn? The ripped pants get tossed in the Good Will bag, and the button is lost at the bottom of the closet. But the mending basket still works as a metaphor for Lent. During this season we look at relationships in disrepair, gaps and fissures in the fabric of our lives, embarrassing failures we avoid the rest of the year.