The Challenge of the Season

The challenge of Lent-Easter-Pentecost is quite different from the Advent-Easter-Epiphany cycle. With Advent, the difficulty is with our culture who insists on following a different calendar and celebrating the feast only in advance. During Lent, our culture provides little competition. Sometimes, when the culture only thinks about Easter bunnies and candy eggs, that can trivialize a great feast. But, by and large, we are free to observe Lent/Easter with little interference from society. That is so, however, may be the clearest sign that we have not been observing this ninety-day cycle very well.

The Lent/Easter/Pentecost season is meant to be the heart of the year … a time when the whole community is renewed for mission and sent forth the change the face of the earth. If we were really doing our job as Christians, our society might well object to us keeping Lent, Easter and Pentecost well, for it should motivate us to preach the Gospel in every corner of our lives and thus confront many of the established powers and structures of our society.

A Quick History of Lent

Several practices came together to form Lent during the fourth century: the prepaschal feast grew to 40 days, initiation structures developed and included final weeks of intense preparation before baptism at the Easter Vigil, many churches began reconciling penitents at Easter, making Lent the time for completing penance. Thus, for centuries, preparation for Easter involved intertwining the catechumenate, penance and fasting, but there were public actions. Over the years, the catechumenate and public penance withered. Preachers focused on individual works of penance and private identification with the passion of Jesus.

At Vatican II, liturgists were aware of the history. Thus, what came out of the Council was that Lent once again became marked with two themes: baptismal and penitential with the stress that penance should be not only inward and individual but also outward and social. This is very demanding. We live in a feel-good culture; sometimes we don't want to look at anything that's going to be demanding. It's also easier to stay focused on me (giving up candy, etc.) rather than work on relationships, etc.

The Meaning of Lent

The meaning of Lent, of course, can be explained in various ways - because in its mystery it has various meanings.

In many ways, its meaning in the last several centuries became very different from the early church because 1) of the separation of adult baptism from Easter; 2) the lack of a clear vision of the mission of the church community. (We focused in on ourselves rather than what we're supposed to do in the world.) Lent became time for private spiritual growth. That is certainly a part of it, but there is much more. It is a community experience of renewal and recommitment to mission.

Two words that should come to mind when Lent is mentioned are baptism and conversion.

Baptism certainly means support for those coming to the church, but also a deep renewal of our own Baptismal promises.

Conversion and penance: the purpose of this is not to browbeat ourselves for being sinful humans, but to help us gauge - and shorten - the distance between our present lives and the life God wants for us.

(We will continue our reflection on the meaning of Lent next week.)