Who Needs Lent? We Do.

Lent is an invitation of God's grace, which, if we enter into with our entire person, can draw us, especially at its' closure, into a deeper embrace of the power of the Resurrection.

CHESAPEAKE (Catholic Online) - This Wednesday, as a Deacon of the Church, I will have the privilege as an ordinary minister, alongside of the Priest, to administer the ashes to the faithful who come to identify themselves as pilgrims on the 40 day journey of repentance and conversion known as "Lent". The Ordo offers two forms which are to be said by the Priest or the Deacon as the Ashes, made from the burnt Palms from the prior years Passion/Palm Sunday, are rubbed into the penitent's forehead as a sign of their penitence. This begins the Season of Lent which continues for forty days until the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday. In the United States the words are: "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel" or, "Remember you are dust and to dust you will return".

This simple but solemn service begins a wonderful invitation from the Lord, who, alive in His Body which is the Church, invites us to walk with Him on the Way of the Cross over the next forty days. It is a period of protracted penance (call to repentance) which we have come to identify as "Lent", a word which is derived from the "lengthening" of the hours of the day every year. It is no accident that it falls in this transition time, when we move from the barrenness of winter with its long periods of darkness into the verdant new life and longer days of sunshine we call spring. The life of grace lived now through baptism is a life of living in a "naturally supernatural" manner. In other languages of our universal Church, there are other terms which have grown out of the practice of this penitential season, such as the use of the phrase the "Forty Days".

The Sacred Scriptures (the "Bible") speak to us on many levels. One level which we moderns in the West are often not even aware of is its use of numbers as a language, in a symbolic manner. Symbols can open our eyes to a deeper truth. For example, is it an accident that a child usually in the in the womb for forty weeks, which is considered the fullness of the term? Of course not! There are several forty periods in events of importance in the history of Salvation found in the Old Testament of our Bible. For example, the Forty days Moses was on the Mountain and received the Law (Exodus 24:18). The story of the spies recorded in the Book of Numbers results in their being sentenced for Forty years, (Numbers 13:26, 14:34). There were Forty days for the great Prophet Elijah in Horeb,(1 Kings 19:8). The prophet Jonah was sent to Ninevah for Forty days... and of course, the Israelites wandered in the desert for Forty years.

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However, the significance of the number as referring to the fullness of time in God's saving plan was taken up in the mission of Jesus Christ, the New Israel, the New Law, the New Lawgiver, the Word Incarnate, the One in whom all creation began again and given its penultimate symbolic meaning.This One in whom we find the fullness of God and the fullness of our new humanity revealed, was tempted of the Devil for Forty days,(Matthew 4:2). Then, after the great salvific act of selfless Divine Love on the Cross, he defeated the last enemy, death. He was seen in His resurrected glory by his disciples for Forty days.(Acts 1:2)During that time he continued his preparation of the New Israel, His Church, which had been birthed from the water and blood which flowed from His wounded side on Calvary. To that Church he entrusted his continuing redemptive mission until His glorious return. Forty is no an arbitrary number. In fact, numbers are used as a language in the life of faith. Our Forty day observance of the Holy Season of Lent inserts us into this entire stream of God's action in human history and invites us to participate afresh every year.

Each of these forty day or forty year periods was preparatory. They presaged something new. So it can be for our forty days of Lenten observance. The Church, our Mother and Teacher, invites us to empty ourselves through various forms of fasting, abstinence and almsgiving in order to be filled with God's Divine life and Love. We are also enlisted into spiritual warfare (See, 2 Cor. 10:4, Eph 6: 14 - 16), to do battle with the "world", the "flesh" and, yes, the Devil, who is very real and is the enemy of our attainment of the fullness of our salvation. During these forty days we are invited to say "yes" to every invitation of grace offered to us and advance in our continuing conversion, in, with and through Jesus Christ who is the "leader and perfecter" of our faith" The author of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us of the leadership Jesus provided as an example for us in these words:

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God. Consider how he endured such opposition from sinners, in order that you may not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. You have also forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons: "My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges." (Hebrews 12: 1-6)

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Who needs Lent? We do. It is an invitation to receive God's grace, which is His Divine Life. If we enter into it with our entire person, Lent can draw us,especially at its' closure, into a deeper embrace of the power of the Resurrection. It is an extraordinary time, complete with practices of piety, asceticism and worship, which beckon us to "turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel" and, when practiced, open us up to a new experience of freedom. It is an ever necessary reminder of our own mortality, "Remember you are dust and to dust you will return" in an age drunk on self worship. As we receive the ashes this Wednesday, let us do so as joyful, willing and expectant penitents and pilgrims. Then, let us experience the fullness of the Lenten season together as we walk toward the celebration of Easter Triduum, the High Holy days, more prepared to receive what they offer.

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