UNDERSTANDING THE LITURGY by John J. O'Brien, C.P.

LENT: WELCOME TO THE DENTIST?

Lent is thought of as agonizing and penitential. Lent is like going to the dentist. Some remember it as a time to give stuff up: cake, candy, tobacco, alcohol, anger, gossiping, and complaining.

Lent's original meaning had to do with the lengthening of daylight and the coming of spring. St. Bernard said that wintry ice, snow,and hard crusted earth reminded folks of the passion and death of Christ. Spring's puddles, muddy fields, and flowers reminded folks of the Lord's resurrection.

To appreciate a contemporary sense of Lent, use this easy memory focus: 40-3-50. Lent lasts forty days, Its biblical model is Israel's forty years in Deuteronomy 6 to 8 and Jesus' fast and trial of forty days in the desert. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends around five o'clock on Holy Thursday. Lent does not end on Holy Saturday (since the revision of the liturgical calendar in 1969). The purpose of Lent is to prepare three groups for the three days of the glorious passover of the Lord, the Easter/Paschal Triduum. The three groups are: 1. Those catechumens whom God calls, chooses, and elects for full baptismal initiation (baptism, confirmation, communion on Easter night). 2. Others spend Lent to reconcile to the Church through a process of penance, a retrieval of belonging, and sacramental reconciliation. 3. The rest of us, already baptized, prepare to recommit ourselves by renewing our baptismal vows on the Easter night. Easter begins fifty days of rejoicing in Christ's victory, of communal reflection on what baptismal initiation means, and of nurturing the life of faith and service.

Remember: 40-3-50. If you're going to do stuff during Lent, continue to do comparable stuff during Easter. So, if you go to daily Eucharist during Lent, do the same for Easter. Lent and Easter are the two sides of a door we pass over at the Easter/Paschal Triduum.

Lent is a time when mother church is in her last trimester before giving birth on the Easter night. Then, mother church nurtures and cares for the new born for fifty days.

Lent is a time when God cleanses the cup, removes dross, and enables the gold to shine brightly.

Lent is a time when we are emptied of darkness, selfcentricity, and questing for God alone so that we are filled with light, with a sense of community, and a spirit of seeking God with Christian kith and kin.

Lent is a time to focus on the suffering, passion, and the death of the Lord so that our minds and hearts can turn around and become sensitive to the examples of human suffering in our midst: the poor, the jobless, those subjected to sexism, racism, and xenophobia.

This new mentality expresses our spirituality in our bodies. First, through fasting so that the toxants of sin can be flushed out of our systems. Secondly, through prayer so that our focus is more attuned to God in Jesus' agony and passion. Third, through almsgiving so that we shall learn generosity and our responsibilities to the least, the left out, and the last. Fourthly, through justice so that soil of our hearts will be readied for divine and human charity.

Forty days of fast yields to fifty days of feast. Ubi caritas gaudet, ibi est festivitas. Where charity rejoices, there is festivity.