Lent creates space to prepare, remember baptismal promises

Various methods of fasting clears the path to the Paschal Mystery

By ALICIA AMBROSIO
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

For many Catholics Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of 40 days without chocolate, instead of marking the start of 40 days of preparation to meet the risen Christ.

Father Stephen Hero, director of St. Joseph Seminary and professor of liturgical theology, told the WCR that Lent was a time during which catechumens prepared for their Baptism at Easter. The already-baptized joined in the preparations as a way to renew and remember their own baptismal promises.

Ash Wednesday, the day on which Catholics have the ashes of last year's palms placed on their foreheads, stems from the practice of public penance common in the early Church, Hero said.

The visible mark

Traditionally, Catholics preparing to be reconciled with the Church on Holy Thursday wore some sort of visible mark as a sign of their repentance. Through the years, the practice was expanded to include all Catholics and turned into an annual ritual, he said.

Ash Wednesday is also traditionally a day of fasting and abstaining from meat. This is intended to emphasize the fact that the day is the beginning of a period of preparation.

Similarly Fridays during Lent were considered days of abstinence in Canada, and the faithful were required to avoid meat. In the United States all Fridays in Lent are still considered days of fasting and abstinence.

Fasting days

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) has decided only Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are obligatory days of fasting. However, the CCCB says Canadian Catholics should still do something special to mark Fridays during Lent, perhaps spending extra time in prayer or performing an act of charity.

Of course many Catholics still avoid meat and try to fast on Fridays during Lent. "It shows how deeply people's piety took root," Hero said.

Prior to the Second Vatican Council all Fridays, not just those in Lent, were considered days of abstinence, a day on which meat was to be avoided. This was because Fridays are considered "like a little Good Friday," Hero said - a day on which to commemorate Jesus' death in some way. Avoiding meat was considered to be a way of doing this.

Similarly "every Sunday is like a little Easter," commemorating Jesus' resurrection. While Sunday liturgies during Lent still commemorate the resurrection, they must also reflect the fact that a special time of preparation is underway.

Thus the Alleluia is replaced with another, often more sombre, Gospel acclamation. Hero calls this a "musical fast," explaining that when Gregorian chant was the standard in church music, the Alleluia was very festive and ornate and seemed unfit for a Lenten Mass. In the Eastern rite churches, however, the Alleluia is sung all year round.

The practice of making Lenten promises or resolutions is also supposed to be a sign of preparation. Somewhere along the line, however, the focus shifted from preparation to repentance and it became normal for people to "give up" something for Lent, Hero said.

In the early centuries, the fast was quite strict, notes the New Catholic Encyclopedia. Christians were allowed only one meal per day, toward evening, with meat, fish and, in most places, eggs and dairy products strictly forbidden. Meat was not allowed even on Sundays.

A means to an end

Starting in the ninth century, this practice began to be relaxed until Vatican II placed the emphasis in Lent squarely on preparation for Christian initiation and on disposing the faithful to celebrate the Paschal Mystery. Fasting is now seen as a means to those ends and not as an end in itself.

Still old practices continue and today it remains quite common to hear Catholics say, "I'm giving up chocolate for Lent."

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