This week, we begin the 40-day retreat we call Lent. I describe it this way because, in the early days of the Church, Lent was primarily the season of final preparation for the catechumens preparing to enter the Church at Easter. It is still this for our catechumens here at St. Joe. Please keep these special people in your prayers for these 40 days.
Lent begins early this year. Ash Wednesday can fall anywhere from February 8 to March 8, depending on the day of Easter, which as you all know fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.
Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, once said that “the purpose of Lent is to keep alive in our consciousness and our life the fact that being a Christian can only take the form of becoming a Christian ever anew. Christians need the power to stand fast against the natural tendency to let themselves be carried along.”
Bishop Kenneth Untener (of Little Black Book fame) once described Lent as “spring cleaning,” when we don’t just vacuum and dust around things, but we move the furniture and get into all the nooks and crannies of our lives to be renewed and restored.
The three traditional disciplines of Lent are ancient, but still very important to this season and to our own spiritual growth: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving. How can we do each of these better this year?
A reminder: FASTING means eating only one main meal per day and eating nothing between meals. This is required for Catholics between the ages of 18 and 59 on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. (Medical conditions may abrogate this obligation.) ABSTINENCE means not eating meat. This is required of Catholics age 14 and older on Ash Wednesday and all the Fridays of Lent. Another Lenten “discipline” may be to pray Evensong each Thursday of Lent at 6:30 p.m. in our church. This beautiful and reflective prayer touches people’s hearts each year. Come and join us! Have a blessed week and Lenten season.
