The New Lent
To the church in the diaspora[1]
Deuteronomy 26: 4-10 Romans 10: 8- 13 Luke 4: 1-13
Introduction
New liturgical
time: Lent
On
Ash Wednesday (
The first day of Lent
A
bit of liturgical trivia explains how the church arrived at a Wednesday as the
opening day of the Lenten season. In honor of the forty days Jesus spent in the
desert praying and fasting, the Council of Laocidaea in 360 prescribed the
observance of a forty day penitential season in preparation for the celebration
of Easter. That forty day ordeal which ends with the Devil tempting Jesus three
times is always recounted on the first Sunday of Lent in all three liturgical cycles (Mt. 4:1-11; Mk.
The linguistics
of Lent
Another
bit of liturgical trivia is that in some languages the only word there is for
Lent is “forty.” The only word Latin has for Lent is "Quadragesima,"
and that simply means forty. The only word Italian has for Lent is "Quaresima,"
and that simply means forty. The only word Spanish has for Lent is “Cuaresma,”
and that simply means forty. Another
linguistic trivia is Mardi Gras—the Tuesday
before Ash Wednesday. In French Mardi
means Tuesday, and gras means gross
or fat. Centuries back, when evening set on Fat Tuesday and as Ash Wednesday was
about to dawn on a penitential period of abstinence from meat (especially in
the old days), people would cry out Carne-vale!,
because in Latin carne means meat and
vale means goodbye. Goodbye to pork
and beef and duck and chicken”
The ashes of
Lent
The
gospel for Ash Wednesday always admonishes us saying, “When you fast, do not look
glum and gloomy as the hypocrites do…. Rather wash your face and comb your
hair, so that others cannot know that you are fasting.” (Mt 6: 16-17). In the
course of time the church did just the
opposite: she introduced the custom of
smudging our clean foreheads on Ash Wednesday with the ashes of old blessed palm
branches, and she admonished us saying, “Remember
man (women in those days didn’t mind being called “man”) that thou art dust and
unto dust thou shalt return.” Then the faithful proudly displayed their smudged
foreheads for the rest of the first day of Lent.
Something
very remarkable always happens on Ash Wednesday. It isn’t a Sunday. It isn’t a
holy day of obligation. It’s a week day. It’s a work day. But still the
faithful come flocking! The churches are packed! For some incomprehensible
reason Ash Wednesday fascinates us. Now it’s quite understandable that the
faithful should come flocking on Palm Sunday to receive a blessed palm, or on
Candlemas Day to receive a blessed candle, or on Easter Morning to receive
blessed water. It’s the old yen in us
humans that likes receiving something for nothing. But to come flocking on Ash
Wednesday to receive nothing (!) -- to receive ashes (!) -- to have their clean
faces smudged and to be reminded that they are dust and unto dust they shall
return--that, indeed, is incomprehensible!
For
a moment at least, the stark ritual of Ash Wednesday puts us squarely in touch
with a profound but nagging reality of our being: our mortality. No matter how
much we try to deny it or distract ourselves from it or refuse to think or talk
about it, that nagging reality is always there down deep within us. For a
moment the ashes of Lent bring it to the fore—to the forehead—and remind us of
what we easily forget: that we, indeed, are dust and unto dust are going to
return. Our ritual ashes are like Jewish
phylacteries--those little ritual boxes which contain Moses’ commandment to
love the Lord God with whole heart, soul and mind, and which Jews attach to
their foreheads (Dt 6: 4-5).
We
all live in the shadow of our human mortality. We all have friends and loved
ones who have cancer or are dying from cancer. Some are survivors of cancer. A very special cousin was diagnosed with
breast cancer. After a lumpectomy, the doctor gave her his diagnosis: of the
six points he had to report four of them were not favorable! How powerfully and painfully she experienced
her mortality with that report! When Ash
Wednesday rolled around, she told me she didn’t need any ashes to remind her
that she, indeed, is dust and unto to dust she shall return.
The three temptations
of Lent
In Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov the
Grand Inquisitor asks Christ, “Dost thou think that all the combined wisdom of
the world could have invented anything in depth and force equal to the three
temptations put thee by the wise and mighty Spirit in the desert” (Ch V, Bk V)? Scripture’s formulation of the three
temptations of Jesus on the first Sunday of Lent is, indeed, mystical, and
there are as many interpretations of them as there are preachers.
After his forty-day fast, Jesus is hungry, and the
Devil tempts him saying, “If you are God’s Son, command this stone to turn into
a loaf of bread” (Lk 4: 3)! There is something cheap and gaudy about the
Devil’s challenge. It has the ring of a fast-fix. You fix hunger only through
the long haul: through wheat ground into flour, flour kneaded into dough and
dough baked into bread.
After the first temptation failed, the Devil takes Jesus
to a very high mountain and shows him all the glitter and gold of the world’s
kingdoms before them, saying, “If you will fall down and worship me, I will
give you all these splendid kingdoms and their glory” (Lk 4: 7). There is
something cheap and gaudy about this challenge also. It, too, has the ring of a
fast-fix. There is no fast track to glory and gold; all the Olympic stars
testify that that comes only with the long haul.
The Devil tries a third and last time to tempt
Jesus. He takes him to a very
The second half of the last
century exploded into the Culture of the Fast-fix. It gave us fast food which
requires no patience. You don't have to prepare it; you only have to order and eat
it. It gave us fast sex which again requires
no patience. You don't have to wait for it; it’s always there for the grabbing,
as the Anna Nichole Smith soap demonstrated for us this past week. The last
century gave us also instant ecstasy which requires no patience. You don't have
to earn the highs of life; you only have to swallow them down as pills or shoot
them into your veins as fast-fixes or imbibe them in Vodka. In such a culture the
three temptations of Lent speak meaningfully on the first Sunday of Lent.
The God of Lent
Who
is the God of Lent? The old God of the old Lent was a God who has gone into a deep
pout or anger because of our sins, and had to be appeased and bought off with a
glum and gloomy observance of forty days. Now the gods of ancient
The sin of Lent
What is the sin of Lent towards which Lenten
repentance is directed? I’ve always
found it hard to believe that anthropomorphism which characterizes sin as “a slap on God’s face.” God doesn’t have
a face to slap. I know a person who doesn’t even believe the catechism’s age-old
answer that sin is “an offence
against God.” The man is a robust cattle farmer from one of those little towns
north of
And yet one day
this man, so steeped in mystic spirituality, surprised me when he said out of
the blue, “I don’t believe in sin!” Then
he hastened to add, “Oh, I do believe in evil, but I don’t believe in sin as an
offence against an almighty and all-powerful God.” I didn’t bat an eyelash. I
registered no dismay. I thought he was saying he didn’t believe that sin can
offend or hurt an almighty God who is untouchable. (I don’t believe that
either.) I thought he
was saying that if sin offends or hurts anyone, it’s either ourselves or our
neighbors, and if it doesn’t hurt ourselves or our neighbors, then whatever it
is, it’s simply not sin. (I believe that too.)
The
penance of Lent
What
is the penance of Lent? We remember the old days when we used to ask ourselves,
“What are you doing for Lent?” With good will but perhaps not with great
perspicacity we used to impose little penances on ourselves, like not eating
candy or not going to movies during Lent (Sundays excluded because you don’t
fast on Sundays). One of the new prefaces for Lent spells out the penance of Lent
in a more profound way:
Father, all-powerful and ever-living God,
we do well always and everywhere to give You thanks
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Each year you give us this joyful season
when we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with mind and heart
renewed.
You give us a spirit of loving reverence for You, our Father,
and of willing service to our neighbor.
As we recall the great events that gave us new life in Christ,
you bring the image of your Son to perfection within us.
Now with angels and archangels, and the whole company of heaven,
we sing the unending hymn of Your praise.
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
Conclusion
The New Lent
Just
as there is a new Advent since Vatican II so there is now a new Lent. The new
Lent is not a glum and gloomy journey of forty days; it is a “joyful season.”
The new Lent doesn’t rehabilitate God the pouter who needs to be humored and
bought off; it rehabilitates us by bringing “the image of your Son to
perfection within us.” The new Lent doesn’t say “Carnevale”—“Goodbye” to meat
or movies or candy; rather it says “Ave”—“Hello” to “willing service to our
neighbor.”