By Aimée O’Connell

Most of us associate Ash Wednesday with putting aside, going without, giving away and pruning back those distractions which have accumulated since (at least) the end of last Lent.  It seems an unusual choice for a website launch date, especially when screen use and social media are often among the first things we shave as we seek to get back to essentials.  Yet, here we are, unveiling AUTISM CONSECRATED, squarely on the first of Lent’s two strictest days of fasting and abstinence.  How so?  It is a question worth exploring, since it happens to coincide with other Ash Wednesdays of recent years.

In January of 2017, the need for spiritual support and direction specific to autism was yet unmet on a widespread basis.  I had a growing sense that the life and theology of St. Thorlak could help address this need, if only his story could be better known and understood.  I brought this to prayer by requesting a weekday Mass for this intention at my home parish.  I was offered the morning of March 1, and, in reaching for the right words to summarize my intention, I asked that the Mass be for “the mission of Saint Thorlak.”

Little did I realize that I would soon start building a website using that title, and that its launch date would coincide with the date of my Mass… and, that March 1 was also Ash Wednesday.  I marveled at how apt that St. Thorlak’s online debut coincided with the Church’s call to seek that path which will lead us closer to God.

Autistic theology is still a largely unbroken trail… meaning, it is not readily visible along the landscape, and takes significant determination to navigate.  The Mission of Saint Thorlak website has done a splendid job of commencing the journey and inviting others to travel along with us.  We have only been walking together three years, but we have made a significant start in defining this particular path, which we have come to call the Way of Saint Thorlak, and we have also made great headway in telling his story.  In fact, the opportunity to write (and eventually publish) a full biography of Saint Thorlak came, appropriately enough, on Ash Wednesday, 2018.  Another beginning!

It has become increasingly apparent that our trail is branching.  We are coming upon areas involving the larger community, and it is clear that we as autistics have both our own, distinct path and a common identity with the rest of the sojourners seeking the way to live in God’s love.  In short, we are all members of the Body of Christ.  The question has shifted from asking where we fit to wondering how the rest of the body interprets our being here.  We have the same Mission, with a different focus.

And so it is that we have taken the heart of the Mission of Saint Thorlak and placed it in the center of AUTISM CONSECRATED – our new website, and our new vision: to realize autism’s belonging in the Body of Christ.  Think of this as the same essential Mission from a new vantage point.  Over the next few weeks, we will highlight several of our website’s features, and then prepare to move forward once more on this yet-unbroken trail of autistic theology.

May this Ash Wednesday be, for all of us, another beginning.