By definition, the season of Lent means preparing for Holy Week, leading up to Easter. For many of us, we view it as a time to give up something like eating our favorite food, or smoking. For others, it may be a time for attending Mass more frequently, or praying. It is a time of soul-searching and repentance for the celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection.
The 40 days of Lent are called as such because that is the Old English word for "spring," the season of the year which they fall. This is something unique to the English. In almost all other languages its name is a derivative of the Latin term, or "the forty days."
However, Lent owes much of its spirit in the 40 days Jesus Christ spent in the desert to prepare His ministry. He was tested, tempted there, but He rejected all the opportunities and possibilities to be the wrong kind of messiah. He left behind all the expectations of others, all the hopes, all the illusions -- it was just Jesus and the Father, in the Holy Spirit. Yet still in the solitude of the desert, demons come. In the end, the final defeat of evil is through the Cross and Resurrection.
Most of us think that we understand God, we think we know ourselves and those around us. In short, we are people of illusions. We impose our wills on God and yet we feel shocked and depressed when life turns differently than what we wanted it to be. Jesus did not have such illusions, but we have illusions about Jesus.
We can connect Jesus’ desert experience to deprivation. During Lent, we abstain from meat on Fridays, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Many people perform acts of penance, giving up certain pleasures like sweets, TV and the like. For many people, however, deprivation is a great evil, and it is to be avoided at all costs. In being deprived, we feel that we are not all-powerful as we are slaves to our bellies, to the opinions of others, to pleasure. This season, we have the opportunity to see and hear the truths that are usually lost in the illusions of meaningless pleasure and talk.
Thomas Merton, a 20th century American Catholic writer, poet, social activist and Trappist monk wrote about a kind of "dread"—a nagging sense that we have missed something important or that we have been somehow untrue to ourselves. In this life, we try to make some progress in discarding unimportant attachments. At death, we will no longer have a choice, as we cannot leave this life burdened with foolish attachments. We will be judged with no illusions, no hypocrisy or lies. Lent is a good time to begin discarding these attachments in this life, the best time to start, however, is always now.
We must always remember that through of all of these, God is with us. We may not think that He is there to offer comfort now, but He promises no trial beyond our ability to succeed. He offers us no truth we cannot accept.
( Published March 31, 2010 in SF Magazine p. 2 )
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