As an important religious observance in the Christian world, Lent is the season to observe and commemorate the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the son of God, our Savior and Redeemer. It is an opportune time to reflect on what it means to be a follower of Christ. This year, Lent takes place from Wednesday, March 2, to Thursday, April 14, 2022, while Easter takes place on Sunday, April 16. As Lent 2022 commences, Christians worldwide mark the season with traditions that include self-sacrifice, penance, fasting, and almsgiving — but with a new sense of hope after two dark pandemic years. Many churches shut their doors, went virtual, or altered services to heed health warnings during the past two Lenten seasons, while in contrast Lent 2022, which began on March 2, finds worship largely returning to “normal.” This year, “Lent is not about worshipping from home,” says a cautiously optimistic Fr. Edmundo Zarate, Catholic pastor of St. Anthony Church in National City and St. Jude Church in San Diego. “We are part of a community, the body of Christ as St. Paul tells the Corinthians, and we now have the opportunity to be witnesses in that faith community — no matter our religious tradition.
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken with it some
of our weak and elderly people and added to our vulnerabilities. It has made us
more conscious of our limitations and has prevented many of the movements and
activities we wanted to carry out. It has been a kind of prolonged Lenten
season of good thinking and purification. It has forced us to cut down on
travels and meetings proving that many of them may not be necessary. Further review
of our life should take place during the liturgical time of Lent we just
entered on Ash Wednesday on the 2nd of March. Let us focus on the spiritual
dimension and the main options we have, such as prayer, fasting, and
almsgiving. Prayer ensures our closeness to God, the source of all strength.
The absence of prayer means exclusive trust in our human means and resources,
which may be relevant and consistent, but still limited and defined. We may be
intelligent and of good character, nicely projecting ourselves, like a fancy
car, colorful and fast, but useless and powerless without fuel. It is our eyes
fixed on God and our trust in his words that give us inspiration, direction,
and inner strength to face what comes our way and see the challenges and the
meaning of it. Prayers keep our hearts open and our minds honest. Fasting takes
many meanings and many ways nowadays. Abstaining from food can only be an
external sign of a deeper engagement against all poisonous nourishment. It’s
not much what comes from outside that we need to fast from, but what comes from
inside. It’s already there and it’s damaging: lack of interest, laziness,
hatred, jealousy, greed. This horrible mixture translates into alcoholism,
neglect of children, violence against women, sorcery practices and false
accusations, absenteeism from duties, financial and political corruption, and
other evils. Either fasting from food is a sign and a means of detachment from
evil practices or it just remains the show of hypocrites. All need to translate
into almsgiving. Not dole-outs. Not a once-a-while donation. But an attitude of
constant charity with solidarity and justice. It means open arms for families
without food, children with no school fees, people in hospital or in jail
especially with no relatives visiting and supporting them, displaced people,
and refugees.
For many people, Lent is associated
with certain kinds of sacrifice: giving up something one enjoys for the season,
abstaining from meat on Fridays, and fasting on prescribed dates. These forms of
voluntary self-denial have served the Christian faithful well over the
centuries as a set of practices that help take us out of our daily routines and
ordinary life in order to renew ourselves in living the Gospel. As we journey
towards Easter and the celebration of the risen Lord, it is our duty to make
this attitude sink in our minds and hearts. At the end of Lent, we all should
be able to say that we have strengthened our prayer life, we have departed from
negative thoughts and practices, and we have helped somebody one way or another.
That would be a true sign of conversion leading to life and resurrection.
Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/1990508077827987/posts/3059663727579078/
https://www.facebook.com/1990508077827987/posts/3058454854366632/
