“Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not involve endless pre-occupation.
You should dwell also on the glad remembrance of the loving kindness of God.”
Bernard of Clairvaux
Contemporary and friend of
Hildegard of Bingen

Lent

Lent will begin this month on Ash Wednesday February 25th. The word Lent comes from the English word ‘Lenten’ and derives from the lengthening of days. This underscores Lent as a time for spiritual renewal and growth. Lent has its origins in the period of time that candidates for baptism in the early church would complete preparation for baptism. In the early Church Easter was the only time baptism was regularly administered. In the ancient Church preparation for baptism took three years. Not surprisingly, the days just before Easter were especially significant for the catechumens (those preparing for baptism).This represented the final stage in their long journey towards preparation of Christian initiation, with their baptism occurring in the midst of the Easter liturgy. AWESOME!

Lent in the ancient Church was also a time of preparation when those had been excommunicated for grave and public sin. The lapsed and the excommunicated were readmitted to the Church’s sacramental life in time for the Easter liturgy. They had gone through a strenuous period of examination and penance in preparation for that day. It did not take long for the Church to see that this period of reflection, examination and penance might benefit all Christian people as they prepared to celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord at Easter.

Whatever the circumstances of a person’s life Lent was a time of preparation through penitence, almsgiving, fasting and prayer. These spiritual disciplines were meant to help us through the forty days of preparation. It is unfortunate that over the years these disciplines have become trivialized. I can remember as a child being asking and being asked by my friends what we would be giving up for Lent. Usually it was candy or TV-nothing too hard to ‘give up’ for forty days. And the time or money spent on these luxuries was to be given to a cause that we didn’t pay any attention to during the rest of the year. Talking about and actually forgiving yourself or someone else during this period of time and having regular prayer were the two disciplines that usually got the least amount of attention.

As our faith ancestors in the early Church prepared for Easter with these disciplines they did so with the intent of becoming more closely connected to their God, each other , ourselves and our world. Use Lent to remind us of the promises and vows we made at our own baptism- this covenant that binds us to our Creator, one to another and ourselves. Lent is meant to be a time to feed our souls.

I leave you with a poem by Robert Herrick, a 17th Century Anglican priest.

To keep a true Lent

Is this a Fast, to keep
The Larder lean?
And clean
From fats of Veal and Sheep?

Is it to quit the dish
Of Flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with Fish?

Is it to fast an hour
Or rag’d to go,
Or show
A downcast look, and sour?

No; ‘tis a Fast, to dole
The sheaf of wheat
And meat
Unto the hungry soul.

It is to fast from strife,
From old debate
And hate;
To circumcise thy life.
To show a heart grief-rent;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin;
And that to keep thy Lent.

May you feed your souls this Lent.

Jane+