“For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old yeast… but with the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth.”
(1 Corinthians 5: 7-8)
The HOLY season of Lent is upon us. Lent is what we call a penitential season. For Christians, Penance is a necessity. In fact, the first words out of Jesus’ mouth in the first Gospel (Mark) are the words we’ve heard many times: “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” We have heard from the time we were children that “penance” means “giving up something” and that Lent was a time for us to “suffer” or to deny ourselves. However, “to do penance” or “repent” really means “to have a change of mind and heart,” to change, to turn things around. When we do penance, we are called to change ourselves. It’s much more than “making up” or “being sorry.”
Lent takes us to sundown on Holy Thursday. The purpose of this holy season is to prepare us to enter into the Sacred Three Days (the Triduum), the celebration of our redemption: the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, the filter through which we as Christians interpret reality. In other words, the climax or focus of this season is the three sacred days from Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday. These are to be seen and understood as part of ONE event, not three separate ones.
We have “40 days” to reflect purposefully on our relationships with our God, our neighbor and ourselves. Why 40? Some scholars interpret the #40 to mean a “period of transition” (look at the many times the number 40 is used in scripture).
All for what? All to bring about a change in ourselves and in our worlds. And what kind of change? I think it best to think about it as a change or transition from “self-centeredness to other-centeredness.” Our hope is that on Easter we will be more concerned about others and God, and a little less preoccupied with ourselves.
How? How do we bring about this change? Again, as individuals and as a community, we have time to reflect on our relationships with self, others, and God; to perform penitential acts, acts that demand virtue. Remember that acts of virtue demand choice to counteract the choices we make to sin (we do not counteract sin by not sinning but by willfully acting to do good). By these acts we are to become less and by which God and others become more.
Can we fast from food to focus on things outside of ourselves? Do we need to spend more time in prayer – not just saying prayers? (“Nobody finds time for prayer. You either take time or you don’t get it”). Can we take time to read the Bible or learn more about our faith? Can we try to be less violent and hateful, especially in our language (“Toxic language leads to destructive behavior”)? Perhaps we can focus more on the gifts God has given us and use them more creatively? Can we get more involved in caring for those less fortunate than we?
Let’s realize that Easter morning is not the time for us to pat ourselves on the back but to experience even in a small way why Jesus died and was raised for us.
Perhaps, we can take our lead from Jesus Himself. Scripture tells us that Jesus, filled with the Spirit after his baptism, spent forty days fasting in the desert. It was a retreat to prepare him for his public ministry, his transition from his private life to his public ministry. When his resistance was at its lowest, he was tempted – tempted with things which would have been physically and materially satisfying to him, but which would have meant compromising his commitment to his Father. He refused to give in to this self-centeredness and was thus ready to begin his ministry to serve his Father and others.
Do we believe we can be Christ without participating in the life of Jesus? Lent is the gift and glimpse we are given to find out.