Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
February 13, 2002
Thought for Lent: be countercultural
Submit to Church's truth; follow God's call
Lent is perhaps the most richly symbolic season of the Church year. Some of its distinctive customs were beautifully described in "Magnificat" last year by Evelyn Birge Vitz of New York University.
It begins with numbers: Lent's 40 days evoke what Christians once reckoned to be Christ's 40 hours in the grave, as well as his 40 days of desert fasting. The 40 days also draw us closer to the Jewish roots of Christian faith: Moses fasted for 40 days on Mount Horeb; the people of Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years. In French and Italian, the word for "Lent" (which English derives from an Old German word for "spring") connotes "forty."
Then there is food, or the lack thereof. The pretzel has Lenten origins: its distinctive shape was meant to suggest arms folded in prayer. Medieval fasts, much more rigorous than our own, gave rise to unique recipes — of those Vitz cites, "I'm rather charmed by the Polish notion of making cutlets out of mushrooms rather than meat."
Catholics have done things differently during Lent for centuries. On the fourth Sunday of Lent, when the liturgical vestments turn from penitential purple to happier rose, popes once sent golden roses to Christian kings throughout the world. To this day, Italians customarily visit seven churches for Eucharistic adoration on Holy Thursday night, a reflection of the ancient pilgrimage practice of visiting seven Roman basilicas to obtain the plenary indulgence. Austrians light bonfires on Holy Saturday night to welcome the light of the risen Lord.
Lent is fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. But those Lenten practices are less about self-control than they are about getting out of ourselves. As Vitz writes: Lent is not "like going to the gym and seeing how `fit' we can get in a few weeks time. Lent is about our relationship to God, to Christ. What we do, and stop doing, we are doing for God."
Lent is a time for reflection. Here are two countercultural themes to ponder during Lent 2002:
Submission. It's not a popular word these days. But it aptly describes a very popular figure: J.R.R. Tolkien, the late British author who's gotten lots of attention because of the movie release of "The Lord of the Rings." Tolkien was a great storyteller and a master of linguistics, traits amply noted in recent commentary on his work. Less attention has been given to the intensity of Tolkien's Catholicism. For as his literary biographer, Joseph Pearce, writes, Catholicism for Tolkien "was not an opinion to which one subscribed, but a reality to which one submitted."
There's something to think about during Lent: is my Catholicism an opinion I hold, like my opinions about politics, cars, music, novels, or the designated hitter rule? Have I embraced the truth of Catholicism, the truth about God and about us to which the Catholic Church bears witness in the world? Does the very idea of "submitting" to the truth make me nervous? If so, what am I holding back from God, and from the Church? Am I missing something important in the spiritual life by doing it my way, rather than the Church's way?
Mission. This past October I had the privilege of attending the first liturgical service presided over by my friend Raymond de Souza, a combination of vespers and benediction celebrated on the evening of de Souza's ordination to the diaconate in Rome. During his vespers homily, de Souza reflected on the vocation he and his brother-seminarians had embraced that morning in St. Peter's. They had bound themselves for life to the service of the Church and to celibacy. A lot of their contemporaries would think them a bit mad. So why had they taken the plunge into commitment? Because, as de Souza put it, "one mission is better than a-hundred-and-one options."
Here, too, is fruitful material for Lenten reflection. Am I too caught up in the contemporary culture of indecision — keeping my Christian options open, so to speak? Do I have a sense of evangelical mission in my life? What's the one great thing that God is calling me to do with my life right now?
A good, rigorous, countercultural Lent to all!
Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Weigel's column is distributed by the Denver Catholic Register, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver. Phone: 303-715-3123.
Contact Us
