When I was young Lent was a big deal in our very Catholic family. Candy, cookies and cake were out. Daily mass was in. When we finally got to Holy Week, it became a real test of our endurance. Each day, leading up to Holy Friday, they read a full Passion of the Lord from one of the Gospels, in Latin, no less. Holy Saturday morning was the most difficult. The Mass started at six AM. Most of the time the priest was in the back of the church with the people facing the altar in front. It seemed like forever, but it was just a little less than two hours. (This was before they changed to the Easter Vigil which we celebrate today.) When the priest came to the altar in the front, he began what seemed like a regular mass. When we got home, we had to wait about three and half hour until twelve noon. This was the great moment. We could now eat all the sweets we could handle. We had survived. Even if we did not remain totally faithful to our Lenten resolution, we still got in on the party.This, of course, was a deeply cultural event and minimally connected to the real purpose of Lent. It was our idea of being a good Catholic. We were the spiritual survivors and conquers waiting to be rewarded.
The changes of Vatican II turned this whole scenario completely around. The new emphasis today calls for Lent as time to prepare our heart to enter into the Mystery of Love that is Christ Crucified and Christ Risen. Christ is the center. Our spiritual struggle attempts to turn the attention away from us.
In the new understanding of Lent, any sacrifice should help us free our heart to encounter Christ more intensely. The traditional practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving are understood as means to an end. They are meant to free our heart for the journey with Christ in the Lenten scriptures and in our life. Our true Lenten goal is to celebrate the most profound revelation of God’s love, the Crucified and Risen Savior.
Teresa of Avila’s teaching can help us understand this deep Christian responsibility. For Teresa, the foundation of the entire life of the spirit is to put emphasis on God and away from ourselves. Everything in her teaching, that made her the first woman Doctor of the Church, flowed from this single formula. God is God. We are the creature. God is a loving and merciful God who forgives. We are a sinful and broken creature but we are loved and forgiven nevertheless. Humility and self-knowledge are an ever-present mission to let us see God as the center and ourselves as the recipients of this merciful love without conditions and without limits. This merciful love is calling us out of ourselves and into the Mystery of Love.
Lent is a time to re-focus. It is a time to move away from our selfish agenda. Lent is a time to re-center our lives on God and away from our self-absorption. Lent is a time to let the daily scriptures call us to conversion and to direct our eyes on Jesus.
For Teresa and for the Church, we are called away from being the spiritual conquerors ready to gorge ourselves with goodies at noon on Holy Saturday as in yesteryear.
In Teresa’s scheme, the priority is to place God at the center and to move away from ourselves. We may, indeed, be better off if we failed in our resolution to pray, fast and give alms. Often this type of failure exposes our weakness and shows us in the depths of our heart the need for God’s mercy.
Lent calls us to single-minded attention on Christ Crucified and Christ Risen. As the love from the great event of our faith, the Pascal Mystery, penetrates our heart our lives are changed. We move closer to realize the enormity of our weakness. We are the sinner. God is the merciful and forgiving God. We need to rejoice in our feebleness as it lets us see the boundless need for God’s love and mercy.
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