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Lent provides Catholics with time to reflect
(by Sue Reid - February 11, 2010)
Lent provides Catholics with time to reflect
By SUE REID
While Lent is often viewed as a time of giving up, it is also about doing, the Rev. Richard K. Burchell, pastor of St. Rita Church in Solon, said.
"It is about doing the things that need to be done to get to a deeper relationship with God and others," the Rev. Burchell said. "In some cases, it's things we have to remove from our lives."
Lent is also a time to focus on spiritual renewal, he said, and it is often described as a 40-day retreat. Catholics will embark on the Lenten season beginning Ash Wednesday, Feb. 17. It will end on the afternoon of Holy Thursday, April 1, at which time begins the sacred tridium, which includes Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
"It's one liturgical celebration that spans three days, according to the Rev. J. Mark Hobson, pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in Solon. "That's the high point of the church year."
The Rev. Hobson said Lent had its beginnings in the early history of the church as a preparation for catecumants who would be baptized at Easter.
"Easter was the time we accepted new members," he said, "but six weeks prior to their baptism, they would enter into an intense spiritual preparation or a retreat." That time eventually became a practice of the entire church, the Rev. Hobson said.
"Basically, it is 40 days of preparing to celebrate the paschal mystery, which is our salvation through the dying and rising of Christ," he said.
The color purple is a symbol of Lent and is the color of both the priest's garments as well as the cloth that drapes the altar.
"Oftentimes the sanctuary is very bare during Lent," the Rev. Burchell said. "It symbolizes the fact that we are to be focusing upon spiritual renewal and it emphasizes that we remove many things that get in the way of our relationship with God and others."
An Old English word that means springtime, Lent always suggests "new life," the Rev. Burchell said. "Easter, to me, is more then just celebrating our Lord rising from the dead, it is new life.
"We see our lives, and we make decisions through the death and resurrection of our Lord," the Rev. Burchell said. "We not only see that new life in Christ, but we embrace that new life in how we live."
The traditional hallmarks of observing Lent are fasting, alms giving and prayer, the Rev. Hobson said.
"That is pretty much what the scriptures call the people to on Ash Wednesday," he said.
The cross on the forehead, which is given on Ash Wednesday, symbolizes dying and rising, the Rev. Burchell said. "We die to sin that we might rise again."
The Rev. Hobson said that these days, the church allows for a broader interpretation of what fasting and alms giving might mean.
"In the old days, before the 1960s, the church put a uniform fasting on adults," he said. "These days, people are invited to enter into a practice that benefits them spiritually.
"Fasting has become almost a metaphor for making some kind of a sacrifice," the Rev. Hobson said. "Today we try to look at fasting as a way of not only clearing ourself out of things that fill us up and don't leave room for God, but uniting ourselves with those who are hungry in the world.
"Sometimes fasting is breaking the cycle of those things we may need to work on in our own lives and in the lives of our family," the Rev. Burchell said.
"Our fasting should lead to action," the Rev. Hobson said. "That's really where alms giving comes in." A broader interpretation of alms giving involves not only giving money to those who are poor but sharing one's resources or time, he said.
"Alms giving is about service and prayer is the cement that pools the first two together," the Rev. Burchell said.
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