The Journey of Lent

Details: 17 February 2012

Back to Dust

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has noted that "the Lenten season offers us an annual ascetic and liturgical journey that, helping us to open our eyes to face up to our own weakness, makes it possible for us also to open our hearts to the merciful love of Christ." The words of the Supreme Pontiff will resonate again in our lives next week, when once more, on Ash Wednesday, we will start on the road toward the glorious celebration of Easter, a road which begins, as it has for centuries, with ashes on our heads and with the cursing words that God addressed to our ancestor, Adam, sounding in our ears: "You will go back to the ground out of which you were taken, for you are dust and unto dust you will return" (Genesis 3:19). This is a reminder, of course, that, as far as we know, human beings are the only creatures who are mindful of their mortality, that is, who know that one day their earthly existence will terminate. But, most of these same human beings, even those with no faith, seem intuitively to suspect also that some kind of immortality might be lurking beyond that dust, perhaps an intimation of that special breath that God Himself at creation blew into the primordial slime (Genesis 2:7).

Pope Benedict comments, "Why in fact do we fear death? Why has mankind never been able to believe simply that nothing more comes after it? There are many reasons. First, we fear death simply because we are afraid of the void, afraid to step out into the completely unknown. We rebel against death because we simply cannot believe that so many great and meaningful things that occur in a life should suddenly fall into oblivion. We resist death because love demands eternity and because we cannot accept the destruction of love that death brings with it. We fear death because none of us can quite shake off the feeling that there will be a judgment in which the memory of all our failures emerges unvarnished that we otherwise are so busy finding a way to suppress."

Saint Augustine

Saint Augustine said, "Virtually every one fears the death of the body, but so very few the death of the soul. Everyone worries about the death of the body which must happen sooner or later, and does everything possible to avert it. Yet, all that one does to avoid death is in vain. At best one can only delay it, but never escape it. If instead one strives to avoid sin, he will not grow weary and he will live forever. Oh, if we could only succeed in urging others, and ourselves together with them, to love eternal life at least as much as they love fleeting life.... God commands us to do less burdensome things to give us eternal life, yet we neglect to obey."

The great Bishop of Hippo puts these thoughts into the liturgical perspective of Lent and Easter: "Our current time of destitution and tears is symbolized by the forty days before Easter, while the time to follow, a time of gladness, peace, happiness, eternal life, and endless reigning that has yet to come, is instead symbolized by the fifty days (after Easter) during which we lift our praises to God. In other words, we are presented with two time periods, one before the resurrection of the Lord and one after the resurrection. One is the time in which we now live, while the other is the time in which we one day hope to live. The present time of weeping, symbolized by the forty days of Lent, is the time in which we now live and is symbolized in ourselves (by our Lenten practices). The other time of joy, peace, and reigning, symbolized (after Easter), is expressed by our ‘alleluia’... What does that word mean? It means ‘praise God’, but we do not yet possess that praise in its fullness. That praise echoes in the Church, but our own participation in it will be eternal only after our own personal resurrection."

Pope Benedict

Our Holy Father remarks that, although the beginning of each Lent finds us hearing and pondering the somber words that accompany the ceremony of the ashes, we must also use the entire holy season of Lent to remember that our inevitable death is but a doorway opening into another and everlasting world. He notes that the early Christians used to write about the ancient pagan philosophy which said that, "if you want to survive beyond death, you must acquire now in yourself as much as possible what is eternal, namely, truth, justice, and goodness. The more you have of these in yourself, the more of you remains, the more you remain. Or better, you must attach yourself to the eternal so that you belong to it and partake of its eternity."

The Pope says that the early Christians then would use this philosophical beginning to go on to say: "Hold fast then to the truth and thereby belong to the One Who is indestructible. Hold fast to Christ for He carries you through the night of death that He Himself has overcome. In this way immortality comes to make sense." Already in the earliest ages of the Catholic Church our Christian ancestors "realized that man (and death) can be understandable only if there is a God, if God exists. But for them this ’if’ was no longer an ‘if’ and therein lies the answer. God has stepped out of His unknown distance and has entered our ( Catholic) lives, in that He said: ‘I am the resurrection and the life’ (John 11:25). And, still other words illuminated the darkness of death: ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life’ (John 14:6) and ‘Today you will be with Me in paradise’ (Luke 23:43). Above all He has risen and said ‘In my Father’s house there are many rooms...I go to prepare a place for you’ (John 14:2). God is no longer distant. He has shown Himself, and He is accessible. God has shown Himself in Jesus , and so there is eternal life, and death truly is a way of hope."

Saint Leo

Pope Saint Leo the Great, preaching on Ash Wednesday, said, "As we are about, dearly beloved, to embark upon these mystic days, appointed and consecrated for the purification of both soul and body, let us take care to obey the apostolic commandments about Lent. Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, so that in the struggles that go on between our two natures, the soul, which under the guidance of God should govern the body, may uphold the dignity of its rule. Thus giving offense to no one, we will not be exposed to the reproach of those who revile us. For we shall be justly blamed by unbelievers, whose wicked tongues will find in our misdeeds a weapon of attack against all religion, if the conduct of those who keep the fast is not in accordance with the spirit of perfect continence. For our fasting does not consist merely in abstinence from food. It will do us no good to deprive the body of food if the mind be not recalled from wickedness. Remember that the sacrament of Baptism made you into a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not cause such a great Guest to flee because of your bad conduct. Do not put yourself again into slavery to the Devil, for the price at which you were ransomed is the Blood of Christ. He ransomed you out of mercy, but He will judge you in His truth..."