The Season of Lent -19 February 2012

In this Programme we bring you the season of Lent as a preparation for the passion, Death and resurrection of our Lord. Lent is a season of soul-searching, self-examination and repentance. It is a season for reflection and taking stock. Lent originated in the very earliest days of the Church as a preparatory time for Easter, when the faithful rededicated themselves and when converts were instructed in the faith and prepared for baptism. By observing the forty days of Lent, the individual Christian imitates Jesus’ withdrawal into the wilderness for forty days. Lent is the time of abstinence, fasting and prayer when the faithful rededicate themselves to the faith they received in Baptism. Originally, in the early church Lent was considered as the time of preparation for those who were to be baptized, a time of concentrated study and prayer before their baptism at the Easter Vigil on Easter Sunday. Since these new members were to be received into a living community of Faith and those separated from the Church would prepare to rejoin the community the entire congregation was called to the preparation. Today, the forty days of Lent is marked by a time of prayer to meditate on the passion of our Lord. The number 40 is connected with many biblical events, but especially with the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness preparing for His ministry.
The season of Lent begins with Ash Wednesday when the entire congregation assembled in the church receives the blessed ashes on their foreheads and spends the entire day in fast and abstinence. The ashes remind us of our origin and while sprinkling the ashes the priest or the deacon says "Remember, Man is dust, and unto dust you shall return." Ashes are a symbol of penance and considered from ancient times as a sign of mourning. Dusting oneself with ashes was an expression of sorrow for one's sins and faults. The Book of Job reminds us of this as he sits on the heap of ashes. The ashes on Ash Wednesday are made from the blessed palms used in the Palm Sunday procession. The ashes are blessed with Holy Water and are scented by exposure to incense. While the ashes symbolize penance and contrition, they also remind us God’s gracious and merciful love. The ceremony of the day is an invitation to look into our hearts and make the ancient prayer our own: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."
The observance of the Lenten season preceding Easter goes back to the time of the Apostles. Originally, in the first century, Lent was observed as a forty hour period, in keeping with the forty hours Jesus' body was in the tomb. This Lenten watch ended with an Easter service at 3:00 a.m. In the third century, the forty hours evolved into a six day extension which was known as Holy Week. Then the church introduced the three-week form, and Lent became a period of intense spiritual and liturgical preparation for catechumens before they were baptized at Easter. By the fourth century when Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire, Lent had developed into its current length of forty days, the length of the fast and temptation of Jesus in the desert. During the Council of Nicea in 325, Lenten observance was fixed to forty days with emphasis on fasting and prayer.
The number Forty is connected with many biblical events, but especially with the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness preparing for His ministry. The number forty has many Biblical references: the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai with God, the forty days and nights Elijah spent walking to Mount Horeb, God made it rain for forty days and forty nights in the days of Noah, the Hebrew people wandered forty years in the desert travelling to the Promised Land, Jonah in his prophecy of judgment gave the city of Nineveh forty days in which to repent. Historically applying ashes on one's forehead during the Lenten Season goes back as far as the eight century. This was accompanied by different forms of fasting, prayer, sacrifices, and the practice of the acts of charity. Finally, the imposition of ashes was extended to the whole congregation in services similar to those that are now observed in many Christian Churches on Ash Wednesday. Ashes became symbolic of that attitude of penitence reflected in the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us”.
In the early church the Season of Lent had a threefold function. It was a time to prepare new converts for baptism through intensive study and instruction. This was the time designated for the preparation of candidates for baptism and confirmation. Hence it was a season which is intentionally set aside for examination, instruction, penitence and prayer for these candidates. The candidates had to come to the church to receive the word of God and its explanation but were not permitted to participate in the Eucharist during that time. They were accepted into the fold only on Holy Saturday after being baptised. Secondly, it was a time for long-standing Christians to review their lives and renew their commitment to Jesus Christ. This was the time for all the people of God to reflect on Christ’s journey to Calvary where he died on the cross and ended with Resurrection. Lent as a liturgical season began as a way for Catholics to remind themselves to repent of their sins in a manner similar to how people in the Old Testament repented in sackcloth, ashes, and fasting. Finally it was a time for backsliders or public sinners to be restored to the faith. They were expected to come before the Bishop or elders and confess their sin. For the next forty days they spent time in penance, prayer and reflection of the Word of God but were not permitted to participate in the Eucharist. In every case, it is a time for serious, disciplined self-examination, a time spent in intensive prayer and repentance before the cross of Calvary. Hence the church instructs the faithful that these 40 solemn days are to be spent in prayer, fasting and almsgiving while contemplating on the mystery of Passion of our Lord.
In his Lenten message Pope Benedict XVI says that by immersing ourselves into the death and resurrection of Christ through the Sacrament of Baptism, we are moved to free our hearts every day from the burden of material things, from a self-centred relationship with the "world" that impoverishes us and prevents us from being available and open to God and our neighbour. In Christ, God revealed himself as Love. The Cross of Christ, the "wood of the Cross", manifests God’s saving power that is given to raise men and women anew and bring them salvation: it is love in its most extreme form. Through the traditional practices of fasting, almsgiving and prayer, which are an expression of our commitment to conversion, Lent teaches us how to live the love of Christ in an ever more radical way. Fasting, which can have various motivations, takes on a profoundly religious significance for the Christian: by rendering our table poorer, we learn to overcome selfishness in order to live in the logic of gift and love; by bearing some form of deprivation – and not just what is in excess – we learn to look away from our "ego", to discover Someone close to us and to recognize God in the face of so many brothers and sisters. For Christians, fasting, far from being depressing, opens us ever more to God and to the needs of others, thus allowing love of God to become also love of our neighbour.
The Ash Wednesday present us with the three traditional pillars of penitential observance namely, prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Through these we Christians offer our homage to God with the three principal interests: by prayer with our souls, by fasting with our bodies, by alms-giving with our companions and fellow human beings. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount tells us about the need for prayer. Prayer is our personal relationship with God. It is our raising of our heart and mind to him the Lord and creator. The church expects us to dedicate more time to prayer during the season of Lent. Jesus stresses the importance of personal prayer. He says that we must go into our inner room and close the door and pray to God the Father in private and the Heavenly Father who sees us in private will reward us accordingly. For a Christian, to pray means to allow oneself to be loved by the Father, to place oneself in an attitude of listening, of interior docility and to present to him all that we are, our expectations and hopes.
Fasting is one of the most ancient practices linked to Lent. The early Church fasted intensely for two days before the celebration of the Easter Vigil. This fast was later extended and became a 40-day period of fasting leading up to Easter. Fasting is more than a means of developing self-control. It is often an aid to prayer, as the pangs of hunger remind us of our hunger for God. Fasting should be linked to our concern for those who are forced to fast by their poverty, those who suffer from the injustices of our economic and political structures, those who are in need for any reason. Fasting can help us realize the suffering that so many people in our world experience every day, and it should lead us to greater efforts to alleviate that suffering. Fasting helps us to rediscover the need and desire of God as the profound soul of our existence, disposing ourselves to be empty of ourselves in order to be full of him. Down the centuries the fasting rules have changed but throughout Church history fasting has been considered sacred, as it was considered in the Old Testament. Prophet Isaiah insists that fasting must accompany with our changing of behaviour. Otherwise it is not pleasing to God. The pangs of hunger remind us of our hunger for God, and prayer and fasting together brings us to what Lent is about - a deeper conversion.
Almsgiving is simply a response by us to God, a response that we have come to through prayer and fasting. It is an expression of our gratitude for all that God has given and a realization that in the Body of Christ, it is never just "me and God." Works of charity and the promotion of justice are integral elements of the Christian way of life. It is a sign of our care for that in need and an expression of our gratitude for things God has given to us. Almsgiving, far from being an act of giving, is an attitude of the heart, a heart that is humble, repentant, merciful, compassionate, which seeks to reproduce in its relations with others the experience of mercy that each one of us lives in our relation with God. Almsgiving is simply a response by us to God, is a small sacrifice, a gesture of love, possibly humble, hidden, but genuine, which costs something and is done in praise of God and for someone who is suffering and in need. The giving of alms is a great duty, and a duty which all the Disciples of Christ, according to their ability, must abound in. When we sacrifice something of our own by giving help to the Community or by reaching out to someone in need in the form of alms giving, our left hand must not know what your right hand is doing. Jesus calls us to do all acts of Charity privately and then expects us not to remember and glory over it. Hence he uses the imagery telling us what our right hand does, our left hand must not know about it. The acts are done for God and not for praise and glory.
In the early Church, baptisms took place only at Easter; so the weeks before Easter were a focused time of preparation for catechumens. Today, for catechumens and candidates, the role of Lent as a period of final preparation for initiation has been restored. This stage begins with the Rite of Election which normally occurs on the First Sunday of Lent. The Catechumens and the candidates are presented to the Bishop of the diocese at the cathedral. The catechumens' names are inscribed in a Book of the Elect and candidates commit to continuing conversion. During the Period of Purification, catechumens participate in several rites during parish liturgies. On the third, fourth and fifth Sundays of Lent are Scrutinies, during which special prayers are offered for the catechumens "to uncover, and then heal all that is weak, defective or sinful in the hearts of the elect; to bring out then strengthen all that is upright, strong and good." During the First Scrutiny or the week afterward, the catechumens are presented with a copy of the Creed. During the Third Scrutiny or the week afterward, they are given a copy of the Lord's Prayer in accord with ancient tradition in which catechumens were not taught the words to the Lord's Prayer until soon before their baptism.
Lent is a time for penitence and discipline. It is the time for mourning for Christ who is suffering, to be sad over the death of Jesus and the celebration of his ultimate victory. Personally however, during the Lenten season, self-examination is crucial. An individual's response to the call for purposeful reflection on one's need for God is an important factor in choosing a discipline with which to actively observe Lent. For some, fasting is a means of self-examination and denial; yet, fasting is not an appropriate discipline for all people. The purpose of a Lenten discipline is to strip away those things which clutter one's life or impede one from being in relationship with God. It is also a time for people to experience and reflect on the sufferings of Jesus, in light of personal sin and unrighteousness. The dichotomy is stark: Jesus' righteousness and our unrighteousness. Jesus died for the sake of humanity so that we may live. In the desire to renew the liturgical practices of the Church, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of Vatican Council II stated, "The two elements which are especially characteristic of Lent -- the recalling of baptism or the preparation for it, and penance -- should be given greater emphasis in the liturgy and in liturgical catechesis. It is by means of them that the Church prepares the faithful for the celebration of Easter, while they hear God's word more frequently and devote more time to prayer"
In the words of Pope Benedict XVI: “During the entire Lenten period, the Church offers us God’s Word with particular abundance. By meditating and internalizing the Word in order to live it every day, we learn a precious and irreplaceable form of prayer; by attentively listening to God, who continues to speak to our hearts, we nourish the itinerary of faith initiated on the day of our Baptism. Prayer also allows us to gain a new concept of time: without the perspective of eternity and transcendence, in fact, time simply directs our steps towards a horizon without a future. Instead, when we pray, we find time for God, to understand that his "words will not pass away", to enter into that intimate communion with Him "that no one shall take from you", opening us to the hope that does not disappoint, eternal life. The Lenten period is a favourable time to recognize our weakness and to accept, through a sincere inventory of our life, the renewing Grace of the Sacrament of Penance, and walk resolutely towards Christ.”
Some churches use grey vestments for Ash Wednesday or for the entire season of Lent, or for special days of fasting and prayer. Gray is the colour of ashes, and therefore a biblical symbol of mourning and repentance. The decorations for the sanctuary during Lent reflect the mood of penitence. Some churches avoid the use of any flowers in the sanctuary during Lent. The traditional symbol for these forms of Lenten prayer is the pretzel. In the fifth century, Christians were known to make dough of flour, salt and water, which they shaped into the form of two crossed arms to remind themselves to pray. The pretzel was only eaten during the season of Lent, as a reminder to pray. Some churches today still observe a rigid schedule of fasting on certain days during Lent, especially the giving up of meat, alcohol, sweets, and other types of food. Other traditions do not place as great an emphasis on fasting, but focus on charitable deeds, especially helping those in physical need with food and clothing, or simply the giving of money to charities.

Fr. Eugene Lobo S.J.