First Sunday in Lent
Today is Valentine’s Day for lovers and World Marriage Day for couples. It’s also Rite of Election for those who seek to enter the church. But what all of us celebrate together today is the First Sunday of Lent. Not quite the beginning of Lent—we started the season on Ash Wednesday—but close enough for those may have missed their ashes but are ready to take the plunge into the season right now. What is Lent about? Church fathers like Peter Chrysologus in the fifth century insisted it’s about prayer, fasting, and mercy. As Peter puts it, fasting is the soul of prayer, and mercy the lifeblood of fasting. These practices aren’t meant to be a pick-and-choose. They work together to fulfill each other. So if you want God to know you’re hungry, Peter advises, notice that other people are hungry. If you hope for mercy, show mercy. If you want to receive, give. Leo the Great of the same era suggests that we should never worry that we don’t have much to share. “A generous spirit is itself great wealth,” he notes. Don’t forget, when we offer our two pennies like the poor widow, Jesus sees and praises our sacrifice! Also, remember what Jesus can do with some loaves of bread and a couple of fish, or how much wine he can pour from vats of clear water.
What else is Lent about? Maximus the Confessor, in the seventh century, focused his Lenten sermons on penitence. This is the season when we’re invited to hit the reset button and receive the mercy of Jesus! So, come to the sacrament and surrender your sins. What good are they to you, anyway? And once you experience the forgiveness of God, once more it’s imperative to give that forgiveness away. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive our trespassers.” Augustine, fourth century, viewed Lent as a time of communal anguish. We all hold sin and suffering in our lives, some more visibly than others. God knows our trials and walks with us. Even Jesus endured temptation, and that means he was truly tempted. If we want to share the victory with Jesus, we have to accompany him with our personal crosses. What will your Lent 2016 be about? How will you fast, pray, show mercy this season? Take some time to consider these practices and how you can best incorporate them for these 40 days. What needs to be repented in your life, and forgiven, and what might you need to forgive: old injuries, or new ones? What pain do you carry, and how can you invite Jesus to carry it with you? It’s Lent. It’s time!
Lent means “spring.” New life grows in springtime. Through our temptations God will bring new life to us. Lent is a gift of the Church to us. We receive it gratefully to face both our gifts and our limits, to look in a spiritual mirror to face ourselves, our demons and our God. We go together, with Jesus, into the desert of our souls. In doing so, so that come Easter, the renewal of our being baptized will not be an empty formula. But there will be some substance to it, so that we may come out of this Lenten season as re-cycled and reborn Christians sharing more fully in the new life of the risen Jesus. Can you identify at least one unexpected way you have been led by the Spirit in the last month? Where is the Spirit leading you this Lent? Let works of piety . . . be our delight, and let us be filled with those kinds of food which feed us for eternity.
Happy Lent
Father William