The Phoenix Cycle, Again

where myth and Lent collide

This one is from the archives. But it popped into my mind while I was at Ash Wednesday Mass as a helpful way to begin the Lenten season, and I thought it might be helpful for you, too. So, I’m sharing it anew.

The phoenix has a neat party trick.

Depending on the mythological tradition in question, this firebird of lore is reborn from its own ashes. Imagine: You meet a fiery end; things literally go up in flames. And then—poof! From the debris and rubble of life, you return. Renewed. Restored. Reborn.

A really neat part trick—especially if your party takes an unfortunate turn.

I’m not the first person to see in the phoenix myth a helpful parallel for our Lenten walk. The phoenix is a literal story of resurrection; what ends in ash and death is transformed into new life. The phoenix is often associated with the sun and with purifying flames. The spiritual similarities basically write themselves.

But here’s what I’m wondering: Where in the phoenix cycle are we?

We stand in the ashes on Ash Wednesday; we smear them across our foreheads. Is this our moment of incineration? Are these forty days our slow, gradual, painful rebirth—a spiritual movement that culminates on Easter?

Or, were those ashes smeared across our foreheads simply the forerunners of the full-bodied pile of ash we necessarily become? Said differently, are we still burning? Are we still on fire? Are those late hours of Holy Saturday our phoenix moment, the eruption of new life within us from whatever we roasted during these forty days?

You say, “Eric—who cares? It’s all semantics. We rise on Easter all the same.”

And I say, “Yes, but… Have you ever seen a phoenix reborn from a phoenix only half-burned? Can you rise from ashes when you are not yet ashes?”

And you say, “Shut up, Eric. You’re making an awful big fuss over a fake bird.”

Here’s the thing: I think it’s important to know where we are in our phoenix cycle. And I think the answer can—and probably should—be different for all of us. But the process of rebirth from ashes is necessarily different from the process of burning away. We ask different questions. We have different tasks yet to complete.

If we are already being reborn during these Lenten days, then we should be asking things like:

• What will this new life look like for me?

• How am I invited to delve deeper into who God has remade me to be?

• What role must the Risen Lord play in my life?

But if we are still burning, then we wrestle with different types of questions:

• What of my old ways do I still cling to?

• What unhelpful things—habits, objects, relationships, etc.—have hold over me?

• Is something in me resistant to God’s purifying love?

Where are you in your phoenix cycle? Is Ash Wednesday a transition from one state to another, or is it the beginning of the current state’s end?

“Semantics,” you say. “We all burn in the end.”

But do we? Or—if we’re not careful, not intentional, not aware of our own moment—might we get stuck somewhere in the middle? Might we become some half-burned feathered monster, unable to let go and unable to look ahead?

I wonder if the worst case scenario is becoming trapped in a status quo that’s up in flames, that’s untenable, and yet clinging to it all the same.

We’re doing a cool thing this Lent over at the Jesuit Media Lab! Original essays and art every weekday of Lent. You can sign up here. And you can check out my intro to the series here.