Sister Sharon Sullivan recalls her first Lent as an Ursuline Sister as her first chance to “bury” the Alleluia. Here is her Lent Remembrance.

“I celebrated my first Lent as an Ursuline Sister – well, as a postulant – in 1982 with the Sisters at St. Pius X, doing something I’d never heard of. We buried the ALLELUIA.

“Before Ash Wednesday, Sister Clara Reid and I made dozens of colorful versions of ‘ALLELUIA’ on strips of paper, then on Ash Wednesday we buried one ALLELUIA out in the yard next to the baseball diamond, then we “buried” the rest of them throughout the convent . . . tucked in folds of towels and dish cloths, folded between the pages of books, slipped in stacks of plates or behind bottles of spices or cans of soup. Some of us put them in sock or underwear drawers, between sweaters, or under or between cushions. The point was, that throughout Lent, whenever one of us bumped into an ALLELUIA, we would stop with a quick prayer and to remember just what Lent was all about and what would ultimately lead to the renewal of the ALLELUIA.

“I think I only actually buried the ALLELUIA that one year, but for decades thereafter, I would stumble across a hidden and forgotten ALLELUIA, and the prayer would wash over me again. In my books, I might still encounter a stray ALLELUIA because whenever I found one, I would just tuck it back in the book to be discovered another time. So, I’ll never really know when I’ve found the last one!”