This coming Sunday will mark the beginning of the Third Week of Lent. Already about a third of the Lenten Season has come and gone. And as I observe people both inside and outside of church settings, I wonder if Lent really means anything any more. And if not, why not?
The Season of Lent has become a practice of piety. It consists of forty days of fasting, prayer and penance beginning on Ash Wednesday and end at sundown on Holy Thursday.
And yet, from the outset, Lent was inseparably bound to the celebration of Easter.
During its first three centuries, the Church prepared for Easter by an intense three-day period of prayer and fasting in homage and gratitude for the salvation from sin through the Death and Resurrection of Christ the Savior.
In some of the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, this period was extended to a full-week (the origin of “Holy Week”). It was a time of intense spiritual and liturgical preparation for catechumens (converts to the Faith) before they were baptized at Easter, celebrating their personal salvation through the Grace of the Sacrament. Many members of the community would celebrate this time of preparation along with the catechumens. Eventually, the practice became part of the liturgical calendar itself. Over time, especially in the city of Rome, this period was extended to three weeks.
A century after the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD, making Christianity the religion of the state, Lent was lengthened to a period of 40 days, in imitation of the time Jesus spend fasting and being tempted in the desert (Luke 4: 1-13). Modern research suggests that this expanded period of penance may have been influenced by a similar practice among monastic communities of the time.
By the Fifth Century, most people of the Empire were Christians giving birth to sons and daughters whom the Church began to baptize in infancy.
As a result, Lent lost its intimate association with the preparation of catechumens for baptism at Easter. Soon afterwards, Lent was reduced to a time piety, the principal season of the Liturgical Year for fasting, prayer and penance.
The Easter themes of Redemption, re-birth, hope and promise gave way to the intense attention focused upon man’s sinfulness and his need to repent for the damage and evil caused by sin. The anticipation of Easter joy was replaced by the darkness of human failing. Divine Love which inspired and motivated the Sacrifice on Calvary was all but replaced by the insistent and urgent need for sinners to make reparation to an all-Just and Demanding God.
Catholics today live in a totally secularized society. Moral absolutes are by and large meaningless to most Catholics. Subjective morality and moral relativism pretty much rules the day. Few can argue that the very concept of sin has become irrelevant. Almost no one not in their later years of life regularly seeks sacramental absolution by way of the Confessional.
In this context, Lent has no other meaning than it is just another traditional practice which is part of the Church’s heritage but which has little if any practical significance in the life of the average Catholic.
A goodly number of older Catholics still fast and abstain, still confess their sins and fulfill the Easter precepts, still attend the Stations of the Cross and offer sacrifices during Lent. But they are dying off and younger generations are not being formed or catechized about this noble season of Grace.
Perhaps, Lent needs to undergo yet another transformation. Perhaps, Lent needs to rediscover its intimate association with Easter and the celebration of Divine Mercy and Forgiveness rather than focusing in upon the infidelity and imperfection of human existence.
But Lent as it is celebrated now has little meaning outside the liturgical trappings associated with it: ashes, incense, violet vestments and the brow-beating sermons heard from pulpits at this time of year.
My thoughts at least. What thinkest you?
No comments:
Post a Comment