The Catholic Church has two graceful seasons in its liturgical year for the spiritual nourishment of the faithful: Advent invites God’s people to prepare for the birth of Jesus and Lent exhorts towards a spiritual journey of 40 days to experience God’s merciful love. Lent is derived from the “Anglo-Saxon word for spring, which appropriately coincides with the great forty-day fast, common to both East and West at least since the fourth century. In these forty days, Mother Church vests herself in violet (Elliott, 2002).” It is a season of the liturgical year when “social acceptance of and accounting for sickness and sin, disappointment and failure, is shared, even celebrated when considered next to God’s perfection (Connell, 2006).” The days of Lent are precisely from “Ash Wednesday to midday of Holy Saturday (can. 1250).” Lent is that season when we face ourselves in the “mirror of our conscience-our thoughts alone with God-to perform some sacrifice, known to God alone, to better our life as His followers (Leising, vol. II, 2004).”
It is a time of repentance of one’s sins, weaknesses, and failures; of reconciliation and renewal of sinful life. Lent invites us to return to God and be reconciled with Him in such a way that “our relationship with Him will remain intimate and lasting (Dasan, 2006).” It contains the days and times of penance (fasting and abstinence) for the universal Church with “obligatory fasting to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (can. 1251).” It is a journey that leads to the Passover of Jesus, where a certain austerity characterizes the setting of the Lenten liturgy.
Flowers are not used to “adorn the altar from Ash Wednesday until the Gloria at the Easter Vigil, except for Laetare Sunday, solemnities, and feast days (Elliott, 2002).”
Ash Wednesday marks the evocative rite of the imposition of ashes on the foreheads through which Catholics wish to commit themselves to changing their hearts to the inflow of grace. The ashes we use remind us that if we have to “rise to new life of pure joy, we have to acknowledge that our relationship with God has not been close enough, and hence the need to return to Him with a broken heart (Dasan, 2006).” One of the formulas used is, ‘remember, you are dust and to dust you will return (Gen 3:19),’ as a sign of repentance and mortality. The blessed ashes are then imposed on the faithful as a “sign of conversion, penance, fasting, and human mortality (Elliott, 2002).”
The biblical readings of the liturgy give instructions for living the spiritual experience to the full. Return to me with all your heart (Joel 2:12), invites to convert one’s heart to God, in the constant awareness that one cannot achieve conversion on one’s own efforts but it is God who converts. Joel urges God’s people to be reconciled to God: hearts, not garments must be rent in contrition for one’s sins. We must rend our “closed hearts in order to open them to God and no longer rend our garments in a gesture of despair (Days of the Lord, vol. 2, 1991).” The prophet’s words possess a “universal application, unshackled by topical allusions or historical data (Pepler, 1944).” The Lord answers the prayers of people and has pity on them is the central message of the first reading.
St Paul (2 Cor 5:20-6:2), offers another element on the journey of conversion: “be reconciled to God (2 Cor 5:20).” One ought to follow in St Paul’s footsteps to live Lent fully and bear witness to faith, lived in a world in difficulty and in need of returning to God with conversion. Christ’s call to “conversion continues to resound in the lives of Christians (CCC 1428).” In the Gospel (Mt 6:1-6, 16-18), Jesus reinterprets the three fundamental pious practices prescribed by Mosaic law: alms giving, prayer and fasting as the path of divine pedagogy that ought to accompany us not only in Lent to encounter the risen Christ but also continue with the holy practices in faith. The practices ought not lead one to external formalism or towards a sign of superiority but genuinely execute them with love (Mt 6:1). It invites to let-go of one’s self-love, self-will, self-interest, and respond to the lost-least-last brethren of the society in love.
The goal of Lenten observance is Easter joy by participation in the triumph of our Lord. In the “Easter baptism, Christ, the Easter Victor, will present to His soldiers the imperishable crown of eternal life, a grace-filled sharing in His glorified existence (Franke, 1955).” One ought to seek the intercession of Mary in the Lenten journey and pray with conviction, convert us to you, O God, our salvation.
(Joseph Cardozo is Assistant to the Provincial of the Goa Province of the Society of Jesus)
