Our Lenten journey is predicated on Jesus’ forty days in the desert after his baptism. Rather than as a response to baptism and be declared pleasing by the Father, our Lenten journey is in preparation for baptism. In the Church, Lent began as a time when the Elect (i.e., adult women and men) would undertake intense spiritual preparation for their baptism at the Great Easter Vigil.
Over time, this forty-day period became a time of preparation for the entire Church, including those already baptized. Hence, while preparing the Elect for baptism and, along with Candidates, for the sacraments of confirmation and Eucharist as well, Lent prepares the rest of us for the renewal of our baptismal promises at the Easter Vigil.
In what does our preparation consist? It consists of a more intensive and intentional practice of the three fundamental spiritual disciplines taught to us by our Lord himself: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. In reality, the constant practice of these disciplines constitutes Christian life. There is an inextricable bond between these disciplines.
Fasting links prayer to almsgiving. We practice these not to earn but to perhaps enhance through reality, the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. We call these the “theological virtues” because, unlike the natural virtues, such as prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, they are gifts of God and not acquired through our own efforts.
In a manner like the response of Jesus to his baptism and being declared pleasing to the Father, which was his Spirit-led retreat into the desert and his subsequent and equally Spirit-led proclamation of the kingdom, practice of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving is our response to being imbued with faith, hope, and love.
Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are how we, as Jesus’ followers, make visible the gifts God so graciously and generously gives us through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Doing these things habituates you to live your life in Christ. It’s how the kingdom of God is incarnated, which we, as the Body of Christ, are called and empowered to do.
If you were here on Ash Wednesday, at the distribution of ashes, Christ called you to repentance through the Church with words of Jesus from today’s Gospel: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” We need to be careful not to let receiving ashes become nothing more than an empty ritual. In other words, there needs to be a desire and intent to repent.
While contrition, that is, being sorry for your sins, is part of repentance, it is the beginning, the first step. To repent means to change, to convert. Above all, for a Christian, it means desiring and striving to be more like Christ, opening yourself to the Holy Spirit to be more conformed to Christ’s image.
Originally, human beings were created in God’s image and likeness. While the imago Dei (i.e., the image of God) is ineradicable- this forms the basis of the Christian understanding of human rights- likeness to God, which is likeness to Christ, is lost through sin. Our likeness to God is restored by grace through the sacraments.
The sacraments are the inexhaustible spring of God’s grace. Especially during Lent, which is a season of penance, the sacrament of penance is made more available. Uniquely and singularly, you receive through this sacrament the healing and wholeness, the grace you need to repent, to change to live in a more Christlike way. Just as hope joins faith to love, and fasting links prayer and almsgiving, being an extension of baptism, the sacrament of penance links baptism to Eucharist.
Making these kinds of connections is important for us as Catholics. By virtue of our baptism, our confirmation, our marriage, our ordination, our religious profession, our faithful singleness, and our participation in the Eucharist, we participate in God’s sacramental economy of grace. The Church, which is herself the sacrament of salvation in and for the world, exists primarily for this purpose and is, therefore, indispensable for salvation.
Fasting is about what you need to give up to fully place your hope in Jesus Christ, and almsgiving is about what you need to take up for others to grow in charity and become more like him.
The question you need to ask when giving something up for Lent, like chocolate, is how does this aid my conversion to Christ? That said, we could all stand to do more penance. Not only is giving up something you enjoy and that is not bad in and of itself, like meat on Fridays, okay, when done in a penitential spirit, it is good.
In short, let everything begin with the Lord’s inspiration, continue with his help, and reach perfection under his guidance. This will save you from undertaking an exhaustive program of self-improvement, which is antithetical to the spirit of Lent.
Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom is the fourth Luminous Mystery of Our Lady’s Holy Rosary. Repentance and trust in God are the fruit of this mystery. It is important to point out that in Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom according to Saint Mark, repenting comes before believing. Being a disciple is like being an apprentice. Like an apprentice, you come to know by doing.
Being good news, the Gospel isn’t just something you hear or merely read about, it is an experience. “Being Christian,” Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”1
In a very real sense, Ash Wednesday to the Saturday after Ash Wednesday, as the clunky liturgical nomenclature dubs it, is a Lenten warm-up. The six weeks of Lent begin in earnest today, the First Sunday of Lent. And so, today is a great time to prayerfully think about this holy season and how, by the grace of God, you need to better incorporate prayer, fasting, and almsgiving into the rhythm of your own life.
Lent is a gift of time, given to consider very specifically those areas of your life that need healing, those things that need to change for you to be converted more fully to Christ. Through the season of Lent, you repent so that, at Easter, you can credibly profess your belief.
1 Pope Benedict XVI. Encyclical Letter, Deus Caritas Est [God is Love], sec. 1.↩
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