Lent

An Overview of Lent

The word ‘Lent’ comes from an Old English word meaning ‘spring.’ For many of us, entering Lent feels nothing like entering into spring. Spring comes with things like the melting away of the dreary cold and the welcoming in of sunlight, of thawed ground and the first crocuses— not fasting and prayer and what we give out and give up. But this is the springtime of the church calendar: the forty days of Lent.

But, like our spring, Lent is a season of preparation. As a gardener might prune a plant not-yet-in-bloom, so, too, Lent offers a chance to prune, to uproot, and to ready the soil of our lives for the new life of Easter. In doing so, Lent reminds us that we are made from dust, we are fragile and earthly creatures. Though we are creatures who often grow up crooked, Lent reminds us that we are also children whom the Lord desires to see made whole. Our Lenten season then calls us to three things: fasting, prayer, and what the early church calls ‘almsgiving,’ or offering to and for others.

In fasting, we consider what, in our lives, we might give up to the Lord. These are good things, not merely vices. We don’t wait until Lent to notice the rotted branch or the rootworm burrowing deep. Instead, we offer back to God the good He has given—most often things we eat and drink. In doing so, we remind our bodies of our own appetites and the source of these good things. Often, through this process, we find that we need the Lord to reorder what we crave.

Prayer goes immediately in hand with fasting. As we feel our own wants and weaknesses, Lent invites us into conversation with God. In prayer, we offer both the good of our lives and the not-good, the places that are ready for blossom and those bulbs that have never bloomed. Again, we are reminded of our frailty, our creatureliness—of the ways we so often feel death and the ways we try to obtain life. When we feel most vulnerable, most needy, most craving comfort, what do we do? To whom do we turn?

Lastly, Lent invites us into almsgiving. In this, we are invited to turn and look at one another in sacrifice of ourselves. By consecrating ourselves to God in fasting and prayer, we prepare ourselves to offer what we have to one another. Lent is not merely a season where we enter alone, and alone we see God. Instead, our vision is sharpened for one another. The more we feel our own fragility and the deep need for the Lord’s sustenance amidst our fasts and prayers, the more we realize the opportunity to care for one another.

As we enter this Lenten season as the Body, I ask you: what good has the Lord asked you to give back to Him? What do you need to tell Him, and what do you need to hear? And what might He ask you to offer to one another? In this springtime of the Church, as we look for and long for resurrection promises, we remember that “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:49).