Following the Liturgy of Ash Wednesday with the blessing and distributing of blessed ashes, it is important to ponder this graced “campaign of Christian service.” (Collect, Ash Wednesday) While many have thoughts automatically associated with Lent, it is good to take a deeper dive into the gift of this Holy Time as this Holy Season is more than an exercise of will-power to ‘give something up.’
On the First Sunday of Lent, the Church always listens to the account of Jesus going out into the desert to spend nights in communion with His Father. Jesus’ 40 nights and days in the desert are intense. He battles the Evil One who holds before Him delights of this world as well as security grounded in wealth and power. True, there are elements of this world that are good and necessary. Human living requires water, food and shelter, to name only a few. These are primal drives deeply written into our DNA for survival and they, like other drives, exert great leverage on our lives. Jesus teaches with both His words and deeds that our ultimate survival depends, not on elements of creation (even good and rightly used elements of creation), but on a relationship with God our Father that Jesus makes possible with the grace of Holy Spirit.
Approaching Lent as a response to deeper relational living with the Person Jesus puts all in right or proper perspective. Lent can not be about what I do, what I give up, what I (fill in the blank, etc.) Lent, as will all dimensions of Christian living, must start with the initiative of Jesus’ call, then my response as an individual and our response as Church, the Body of Christ. Consequently, the questions we ought to be asking as Lent unfolds, ‘Jesus who do you want me to be?’ Then, and only then, can I ask, ‘what then, Jesus, do you want me to do with Your help?’
Wonderfully, the Church – impelled and assisted by the grace of Holy Spirit — offers us guidance to live Jesus call to deeper communion through this Holy Season. Grounded in the deeds and words of Jesus, the Church proclaims, “Lent is ordered to preparing for the celebration of Easter, since the Lenten liturgy prepares for celebration of the Paschal Mystery both catechumens, by the various stages of Christian Initiation, and the faithful, who recall their own baptism and do penance.” (Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and Calendar, 27.) Lent, then, is focused on the death and resurrection of Jesus as encountered in Baptism, thus a time of purification and enlightenment. Catechumens, who become elected for Baptism at the Easter Vigil this year, and the Faithful who renew Baptismal Promises at Easter, are joined in a singular journey, with an intense Baptismal focus, on the death and resurrection of the Person, Jesus.
Catechumens (Elect) respond in a more intense way in their catechetical preparation for Easter grounded in the Word of God. The faithful join with them in grace-initiated and grace-sustained acts of prayer, fasting and almsgiving that respond to Jesus call, as we heard on Ash Wednesday, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” For the faithful – those already baptized into Jesus‘ death and Resurrection, sealed with the gift of Holy Spirit and nourished with Jesus‘ own Most Holy Body and Blood – pondering the renewal of Baptismal Promises and acting on them can lead us deeper into the mystery of Lent:
Do you renounce Satan? … and all his works? … and all his empty show?
Do you renounce sin, so as to live in the freedom of the children of God?
On the First Sunday of Lent, the Church always listens to the account of Jesus going out into the desert to spend nights in communion with His Father. Jesus’ 40 nights and days in the desert are intense. He battles the Evil One who holds before Him delights of this world as well as security grounded in wealth and power. True, there are elements of this world that are good and necessary. Human living requires water, food and shelter, to name only a few. These are primal drives deeply written into our DNA for survival and they, like other drives, exert great leverage on our lives. Jesus teaches with both His words and deeds that our ultimate survival depends, not on elements of creation (even good and rightly used elements of creation), but on a relationship with God our Father that Jesus makes possible with the grace of Holy Spirit.
Approaching Lent as a response to deeper relational living with the Person Jesus puts all in right or proper perspective. Lent can not be about what I do, what I give up, what I (fill in the blank, etc.) Lent, as will all dimensions of Christian living, must start with the initiative of Jesus’ call, then my response as an individual and our response as Church, the Body of Christ. Consequently, the questions we ought to be asking as Lent unfolds, ‘Jesus who do you want me to be?’ Then, and only then, can I ask, ‘what then, Jesus, do you want me to do with Your help?’
Wonderfully, the Church – impelled and assisted by the grace of Holy Spirit — offers us guidance to live Jesus call to deeper communion through this Holy Season. Grounded in the deeds and words of Jesus, the Church proclaims, “Lent is ordered to preparing for the celebration of Easter, since the Lenten liturgy prepares for celebration of the Paschal Mystery both catechumens, by the various stages of Christian Initiation, and the faithful, who recall their own baptism and do penance.” (Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and Calendar, 27.) Lent, then, is focused on the death and resurrection of Jesus as encountered in Baptism, thus a time of purification and enlightenment. Catechumens, who become elected for Baptism at the Easter Vigil this year, and the Faithful who renew Baptismal Promises at Easter, are joined in a singular journey, with an intense Baptismal focus, on the death and resurrection of the Person, Jesus.
Catechumens (Elect) respond in a more intense way in their catechetical preparation for Easter grounded in the Word of God. The faithful join with them in grace-initiated and grace-sustained acts of prayer, fasting and almsgiving that respond to Jesus call, as we heard on Ash Wednesday, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” For the faithful – those already baptized into Jesus‘ death and Resurrection, sealed with the gift of Holy Spirit and nourished with Jesus‘ own Most Holy Body and Blood – pondering the renewal of Baptismal Promises and acting on them can lead us deeper into the mystery of Lent:
Do you renounce Satan? … and all his works? … and all his empty show?
Do you renounce sin, so as to live in the freedom of the children of God?
Do you renounce the lure of evil, so that sin may have no mastery over you?
Do you renounce satan, the author and prince of sin?
Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth?
Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth?
Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, Who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered death and was buried, rose again from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father?
Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?
SCRIPTURE
“Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.” Scriptures for Thursday after Ash Wednesday
COLLECT
Prompt our actions with your inspiration,
we pray, O Lord,
and further them with your constant help,
that all we do may always begin from you
and by you be brought to completion.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
One God, for ever and ever.
we pray, O Lord,
and further them with your constant help,
that all we do may always begin from you
and by you be brought to completion.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
One God, for ever and ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment