Haitian Lenten Series by Maria King Carroll--April 2014

Cholera Victim--Pestel, January 2012--Photo by John Carroll

My wonderful wife Maria posted a series of posts for 47 straight days during Lent. You can find them here.

These are Maria’s words explaining her reasons for posting during Lent:

“When I was in Haiti in December, I read Pope Francis’s Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium–Joy of the Gospel–which was released on November 24, 2013. At 51,000 words, Joy of the Gospel is a novel-sized document. The Pope writes passionately about many of the themes that have characterized his papacy–inclusion and significance of the poor, peace and dialogue, and the joy of being a Christian.

“Haiti was the perfect place for me to read the Exhortation. It is a land of poor people who are often joyful, despite their miserable conditions. I pulled out a lot of quotes from the Pope’s letter, and each day during Lent, I will post one of these quotes, along with a photo from Haiti.

“There is something about Pope Francis–his actions, his writings, his person–that gets into the marrow of what it means to be a Christian.”

Here is the first quote from Pope Francis:

“Sometimes we are tempted to find excuses and complain, acting as if we could only be happy if a thousand conditions were met. To some extent this is because our technological society has succeeded in multiplying occasions of pleasure, yet has found it very difficult to engender joy. I can say that the most beautiful and natural expressions of joy which I have seen in my life were in poor people who had little to hold on to.”

John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org