The Meaning of Lent Leaflet Preview

THE MEANING OF LENT

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On the Christian Journey Before we can practise Lent we are to be given its meaning.

We know about the forty days. We know about fasting, praying, and works of mercy. But what is the meaning of all of it? What is the meaning of Lent?

Let us start from the beginning, the ‘beginning’ of Lent.

Were you asked – as I have been – to write about Lent, where would you start? From Epiphany, of course! Are you surprised? Yes, Epiphany, not Ash Wednesday! According to a very ancient tradition of the Church, on the feast of the Epiphany a deacon would announce the dates of the major feasts of the new year. Not a ‘holy list’ for the diary, but an announcement, a solemn announcement, the proclamation of the Gospel: Christ our Passover (1 Co 5:7).

On the night of the Epiphany, amongst many bright stars, the Church – like the “wise men from the East” (Mt 2:2) – points out to us the “Morning Star which never sets”,1 Christ risen from the dead, and doing so sets us out onto a journey, the Paschal journey, the journey of the ‘wise men’, the journey of every man, towards Christ.

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Lent is not just a liturgical season with a beginning date and (thankfully!) an end date. Above all, the first meaning of Lent is a journey, the Christian journey.

This journey is led by the Spirit and it is fulfilled by the Spirit. At the beginning we read that “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert” (Mt 4:1) and at the end we are told to “wait for the promise of the Father…you shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit.” (Ac 1:4) The Christian journey has a destination, Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit; as the journey of Israel had its destination, the Promised Land and its sweet fruits.

Forty, Plus Three, Plus Fifty, the Whole Journey If we want to understand the meaning of Lent and keep its spirit we cannot start off from Ash Wednesday, fasting and penance. The only place we can start is Easter.

Easter, the Passover of the Lord, is not simply a date among many others or the top of a list of feasts to keep. No, Easter is the ‘Feast of feasts’, it is the one feast which generates and gives meaning to all the others. Quoting from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “beginning from the Easter Triduum

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as its source of light, the new age of the Resurrection fills the whole liturgical year with its brilliance. Gradually, on either side of this source, the year is transfigured by the liturgy.”2 At the centre of our Christian journey is the Easter Triduum.

These ‘Three Days’ (Triduum in Latin) cannot be split; they are one single liturgy, making up one movement, a ‘passingover’, the Passover of the Lord, the death and Resurrection of Christ and of every Christian. What precedes them are the Forty Days of Lent, what follows are the Fifty Days of Easter leading to Pentecost.

If we add up Forty Days of Lent, Three Days of Passover, and Fifty Days of Easter, what would we get? Very simple, we get Christianity! The whole Christian journey.

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Repent and Believe Yes, the liturgical season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, but its beginning is not so much in a date, but in the words the priest pronounces over us while imposing the ashes: “Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15).

Lent accompanies the announcement of the Gospel, and belongs to the journey this announcement calls for, a journey of repentance and belief. These are two other meanings of Lent: conversion and faith. These two converge together in Baptism on the night of the Easter Vigil.

The Waters of Baptism At the centre of this night are the waters of Baptism. All those present at the Easter Vigil ‘go under’ these waters: infants and adults seeking Baptism, as well as everyone else renewing their baptismal promises. But why is it essential for all of us to ‘go under’ these waters?

Across Scripture and in the Sacrament of Baptism water comes with two opposed meanings. In the first book of the Bible – the first creation – sea-waters appear as a force antagonistic to the life on earth, a threat to which God has to put a limit. In the last book of the Bible – the new creation – there is no sea anymore. The sea-waters are the abode of the Leviathan, the ancient serpent. Water can be a place (or an image or symbol) of chaos, threat, fear, darkness, the adversary of life, death - all of these can be found in water.

They are not simply mythical images, but real experiences

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of water which were, or can be, turned into images. Baptism is first of all the Sacrament of death, the death of Christ on the cross.

But water is life. Without water there is no life on earth, no fruits. Across Scripture runs life-giving water, from the great rivers of Genesis to the water gushing from the rock in the desert to give life to Israel. From the side of the Temple in Jerusalem to the side of Christ on the cross, water is the source of life. This is why, from ancient days, the practice of the Church has been to administer Baptism with flowing waters from a fresh spring.3 The waters of Baptism are living waters. Baptism is the Sacrament of new life.

That is why we all need to ‘go under’ these waters: waters of death and waters of life. “At the same time” – say the Fathers of the Church to the newly baptised Christians – “you were both dying and being born; the saving water was for you at the same time tomb and womb”.4 But what is it that has to die in the waters of Baptism? Who is it that is to be immersed and to drown in these waters?

Very, very simple. St Paul calls it in his letters ‘the old man’, the man of sin, the man of passions and vices, the man of the flesh, the man who is unable to love (cf. Ep 4:22-24). The whole point of Lent is to discover this ‘old man’ living inside of us. The whole point of what we call the Lenten practices of fasting, praying and almsgiving is to catch this man inside of us, that man who is always full of himself, always turned in on himself, and always for himself. This man has to die for the ‘new man’ to be born.

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Put off your old man which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

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Fasting, Praying, Almsgiving There is no Lent without fasting: In the book of Genesis, ‘original sin’, the source of all our sins, is presented to us as an act of eating. Hunger simply means that I have no life inside of me and that I need to depend on another for life. Satan came to Adam in paradise and came to Christ in the desert, two hungry men. We need to fast in Lent to fight against Satan and to discover the victory of Christ over temptations.

There is no Lent without praying: The Lenten practice of prayer connects us with our spiritual life. We are body and spirit. The conversion of the body cannot be disconnected from our spiritual conversion. Prayer is the antidote to pride. In Lent we need to pray to discover the sin of pride in us and the victory of the humility of Christ.

There is no Lent without almsgiving: Almsgiving connects us to other people, to those in need. It is another form of conversion, turning away from my needs and turning towards the needs of others. Almsgiving is not about being good and generous, no. It is about a ‘shift’, placing others before me!

Fasting, praying and almsgiving are conversion: St Augustine has a beautiful expression to describe conversion, he calls it a ‘shift of love’. Love, our love, is a real force and carries ‘weight’, the pondus amoris. Conversion is a ‘shift of love’, from cupiditas to caritas; the heart moves from self-love to self-giving love.5 8

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Dialogue of Faith and Journey of Faith Before going ‘under the water’ there is a dialogue, a dialogue which is essential to understand the meaning of Lent as faith. Before you and I were baptised, the priest asked our parents two sets of three questions, the so-called baptismal interrogations. Do you remember them?

The first set of questions is about a ‘big No’, ‘I renounce’.

They are called the renunciation of sin. These three questions mirror the three temptations of Christ and of the people of Israel in the desert. The following three questions are called the profession of faith, and represent a ‘big Yes’, ‘I believe’.

What this dialogue says in words, the waters of Baptism make present in sacrament. And what these questions and answers make present is faith.

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These ‘three Nos’ and these ‘three Yeses’ make up what we call faith, which is a movement, a decision to ‘turn away from sin and turn to God’, an act of conversion. Baptism is the Sacrament of conversion and the Sacrament of faith.6 The baptismal dialogue of faith is a dynamic act. With these questions and answers we express the turning of one’s whole life. All of this is made manifest in Baptism by a tripartite renunciation, a tripartite confession, and a tripartite immersion symbolising death and resurrection. “Death and life are here [in the waters of Baptism] uniquely combined…

This becomes wonderfully clear in the twofold symbolism of water in which the unity of death and resurrection proclaims itself in a single symbolic action.”7

The Lenten Steps If Lent is a journey, a way towards the waters of Baptism, this way has steps. Pope Francis calls it ‘the stairway of mercy’. It is first of all a way down, “we descend to the depths of our human condition including our frailty and sin”.8 During Lent we walk down, step-by-step, and we discover more and more what is ‘old’ in us, what is sinful, what can be left behind in the waters of Baptism.

Catechumenate This long journey, made by steps going down, the Church calls ‘catechumenate’. This is yet another meaning of Lent.

This Greek word simply means a journey of initiation, “a long 10

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road that demands an individual’s whole strength, mind, will and heart…the way of the catechumenate, which is itself not merely a process of intellectual instruction but, above all, a process of conversion. It is not enough to study and understand. To be a Christian, one must change not just in some particular area but without reservation even to the innermost depths of one’s life.”9 The meaning of Lent as a catechumenal journey is to help us to experience more than external changes, public and private observances and customs, a change of climate. Lent is a change of ‘style of life’, a metanoia, an ‘internal change’, a change of heart.

The Easter Vigil begins with a procession towards the light. This procession symbolically sums up the whole catechumenal journey, calling to mind Israel’s journey through the desert towards the Promised Land and the journey of humanity, in the night of history, seeking light, seeking paradise, seeking life.10 Lent is a catechumenate: a way from west to east, from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom, from sin to love, from death to life.

Greek word metanoia Metanoia, from the Greek ‘meta’ = change and ‘nous’ = mind, is a word which means a change of one’s mind.

For us Christians metanoia is more than just repentance; it is identical to ‘conversion’ and ‘faith’, a total turning of one’s whole life into a new way. It is God’s gift.

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Three Gospels To help us on this Lenten way, the Church gives us three great Sunday Gospels. In these Gospels Jesus Christ meets three different people: a woman from Samaria (cf. Jn 4:5-42); a man born blind (cf. Jn 9:1-41); a dead man in the tomb (cf.

Jn 11:1-45). These three people are nothing else but images of the ‘old man’ inside all of us.

Samaria, in the geography of the Holy Land, is a border territory between Judaea and Galilee, that is, a ‘border’ land, a land of infidelities and compromises. The woman from Samaria is simply an image of our infidelities, our attachment to idols, our desire to live our life trying to keep together a bit of God and a bit of the world. The meeting with Christ happens at a well, a deep well, an image of the baptismal font. And the dialogue between the woman and Christ is nothing else but the dialogue which precedes Baptism and the renewal of Baptism. Slowly, slowly Christ helps this woman to see her sins, to leave them behind, and to change the direction of her life.

The man born blind is again an image of us walking down the stairway of Baptism. To be blind means to not be able to see our sins and the love of God for us sinners. That is why in the dialogue with the man born blind Christ puts a paste in his eyes and sends him to wash in the pool and the man comes back able to see. Another word for Baptism is ‘being enlightened’. During Lent we walk with paste in our eyes, we discover our mud, our sins, and in the waters of the ‘pool’ of Baptism we receive light, we see the love of God for us sinners.

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The third person we meet before the Easter night is a dead man called Lazarus. This dead man, inside the tomb, decomposing and bound, is the image of everything in us that is dead, closed in and unable to change. Lent is the time when we discover this ‘dead man’ who in Baptism can be raised up to new life.

• An idolater, a blind man and a dead man: the ‘old man’.

• A time: Lent.

• A meeting with Christ, by the well, by the pool, by the tomb: Baptism.

• A real change of life: conversion, the ‘new man’.

• All of these are the steps of Lent, steps going down and steps going up: an ‘old man’ entering the waters of Baptism, a ‘new man’ coming out.

The Grace of Lent The last meaning of Lent: If Lent is about the ‘old man’ dying, renouncing sin, abandoning the old ways, doing penances, is it all about good resolutions and will-power? Do the strong ones among us manage to keep Lent and come out of Lent fully renewed, while those among us who are weak are destined to fail and need to try harder? No! Because Lent is part of Baptism, because the catechumenate is part of Baptism, because Lent belongs to Easter, because Lent is part of the Paschal movement, because Christ has

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died and is risen from the dead, and has given us his Spirit, Lent carries the very grace of Baptism, it carries the grace of Easter, it is a time of grace, a time of ‘favour’. Lent is not about our efforts, it is about grace.

At the end of this small booklet, my hope is that Lent is shining with all its meanings. The forty days across the Lenten desert are inseparable from the abundant waters of Baptism, waters of death and waters of life.

The Lenten garment of penance we put on is inseparable from the white garment of Baptism, the death of the ‘old man’ and the birth of the ‘new man’. The fasting of Lent is inseparable from the feasting of Easter. Receiving the ashes of Ash Wednesday, the lowest point along the ‘stairway’ of Lent, is inseparable from the highest place we reach on the Ascension of the Lord and in the Upper Room of Pentecost.

The Christian journey is a spiritual ‘stairway’. The Forty Days of Lent are a time of grace when we go ‘down’ to be in touch with our dust and desert, our sins. The Fifty Days of Easter are a time of grace when our spirit is lifted ‘up’ towards heaven, our promise.

“We can descend to the depths of our human condition” – wrote Pope Francis – “and ascend to the heights of divine perfection”.11 At Pentecost the Christian becomes a real ‘spiritual man’ who can breath with two lungs, the Lenten spirit of repentance and the Easter spirit of love.

The grace is to keep all of this together: Forty, plus Three, plus Fifty!

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The Dialogue of Baptism, Dialogue of Faith* Priest: Do you renounce Satan?

All: I do.

Priest: And all his works?

All: I do.

Priest: And all his empty show?

All: I do.

Priest:

All:

Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth?

I do.

Priest:

All:

Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered death and was buried, rose again from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father?

I do.

Priest:

All:

Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?

I do.

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* from the Roman Missal 15

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Keep Lent and Lent Shall Keep You

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Find out the date of your Baptism, and if possible, go and pray in front of the baptismal font where you have been baptised. Ask for a renewal of the grace of your baptism, and say: I am baptised, not was baptised! Go to confession during Lent: it is like celebrating the day of your Baptism and so keep clean the white garment of your Christian dignity.

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During the Forty Days of Lent nicely decorate a large candle and on Easter Sunday light it from the Paschal Candle; pray around it over the Fifty Days of Easter.

Keep together Ash Wednesday and Ascension – forty days before Easter and forty days after Easter, respectively – the lowest point and the highest point of our journey.

Take seriously the Lenten fast. It is not about ‘dieting’ but a different ‘style of life’. Avoid, as far as you can, parties, entertainments, TV, radio, Internet, fancy food and drinks. Lent is about ‘external’ as well as ‘internal’ fasting.

Take prayer seriously. At the beginning of each week in Lent read the Gospel for the coming Sunday. Look out in the reading for the ‘old man’ and for the promise of a ‘new man’. During Lent make a point of kneeling down when you pray, but during Easter make a point of standing, to show that we are people of the Resurrection (cf. Tertullian, On Prayer).

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Take almsgiving seriously. During Lent, go around with a purse and “give to everyone who asks” (Lk 6:30). When the purse is empty, fill it up!

Easter Proclamation.

Catechism of the Catholic Church §1168.

Cf. Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.

4 Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture XX (On the Mysteries II) ‘Of Baptism’.

5 Cf. Augustine, Epistula CLVII.IX (PL 33, 677).

6 Cf. Augustine, Epistula XCVIII.IX (PL 33, 364).

7 Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology (Ignatius Press) 1987, p. 39.

8 Pope Francis, first meditation for the Retreat for Priests, 2nd June 2016.

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Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology (Ignatius Press) 1987, p. 35.

Joseph Ratzinger, Homily, Easter Vigil, 26th March 2005.

11 Pope Francis, first meditation for the Retreat for Priests, 2nd June 2016.

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Images: p. 2-3 © slavapolo; p. 4 © VojtechVlk; p. 9 © fwmr; p. 11 © giulio napolitano/Shutterstock.com. p. 7 Icon of the Baptism of Christ, courtesy of Atelier Saint André © www.atelier-st-andre.net.

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