LENT: A SEASON OF RENEWAL
Bishop Paul S. Coakley
Each year the Church offers us the beautiful season of Lent as a time of repentance and renewal. We begin our Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday which this year falls on February 9. As we are signed with ashes we are reminded of our own mortality, that we come from dust and to dust we shall return. We are called to repent and believe the Good News.
In its origins Lent was a final period of preparation and purification for the catechumens of the Church who were preparing for their Baptism during the sacred Easter Triduum. In time it became a season of special observance for all of the members of the Church who accompanied the catechumens by their prayers and prepared to renew their own Baptismal promises at Easter. Such is the rich meaning of this season today. The journey that begins by our being signed with ashes on Ash Wednesday leads to the glorious celebration of our victory over sin and death with the feast of the Lord’s Resurrection. We share his Paschal journey through death to new life. Such is the meaning of our Baptism.
In the Gospel for the Mass of Ash Wednesday Jesus admonishes us to be sure that our religious observances flow from an interior disposition of heart that seeks to please God rather than impress others: “Be on guard against performing religious acts for people to see.” In that same gospel he cites the three traditional ascetical practices of the Lenten season: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Our observances need to have both an inner quality and an outward expression.
These traditional practices are valid for all time. We can be creative in how we use them, but it is important that our Lenten observances involve some aspect of all three. Fasting is a way of expressing our prayer bodily. Prayer is what gives our fasting or other works of penance a true interior quality. Almsgiving is important so that our spiritual exercises do not lead us to turn in on ourselves. The Lenten journey helps us to express our need of repentance by opening our hearts both to the Lord and to our brothers and sisters, especially the poor.
Individuals, families and parishes all have their special Lenten customs. Disciples in Mission offers a structure for regular Lenten reflection as individuals, or with the family and in parish groups. Stations of the Cross on Fridays are a tried and true way of walking and sharing with the Lord the journey of his bitter passion. Reading and praying with the Scriptures, especially the liturgical readings of the day can make this a profoundly rich season of grace. Some make the commitment to attend weekday Masses more frequently. A Eucharistic focus this year would be a most appropriate as a way of observing Lent during the Year of the Eucharist. Setting aside something for the poor as the fruit of our own self denial is a necessary way of combining the disciplines of fasting and almsgiving. Operation Rice Bowl can be a great help to such a practice of almsgiving. Visiting the sick, volunteering to help feed the poor in the community are among the many ways we are invited to creatively enter into the season so as to come to a profound and lasting change of heart.
The ways of observing Lent are as numerous and varied as we are creative. The Church asks that we are especially mindful of the obligation to abstain from meat on the Fridays of Lent (for those over the age of fourteen) and to fast and abstain on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (for who have reached the age of 18 until their sixtieth birthday).
Some of us are procrastinators. We may wait until Lent is nearly over before getting started. Now is the time to prayerfully determine how the Lord is calling us to observe this season. What are the sins that we need to uproot from our lives? What are the virtues that we need to cultivate? What are the steps that we need to take in order to realize these desires? Start with these questions and formulate a simple and realistic plan.
Lent is a shared journey of faith. Let us pray for one another.