We are just beginning Lent, and many of us will have received ashes, as a sign of repentance. The purple colour of the vestments in Lent is usually linked to mourning and sadness; it is the usual colour of the vestments at a funeral Mass. The Greek word for repentance is ‘metanoia’ and it means a profound transformation or conversion, and what has always stuck in my mind is the image of person walking in one mistaken direction and then turning round and taking the opposite one – a ‘U-turn, if you like! My feelings about Lent since adolescence – reinforced by early monastic life – were always coloured by thoughts of dull austerity, hard work and a period of suffering. We have now entered Lent 2011, and this leads me to reflect.
‘There is no gain without pain’ is an often quoted maxim that makes sense to me. The ‘pain’, however, is not quite so important as the ‘gain’; the gain gives purpose to – a ‘raison d’être’ for – the pain. A concert pianist needs to practice eight hours a day, if he, or she, is to be competent to continue at professional standard, and a good athlete trains in equivalent ways, daily; without that vital training, he, or she, will simply not be ‘up to it’. These examples throw light on the matter in hand.
Difficult problems, sadnesses, separations, periods of boredom, lacking in food and sleep, to say nothing of society’s injustices – there are many others I could mention – are all part of our everyday lives. But, these can be used to good purpose. For ourselves to be ‘forged’ in the spiritual life, we should, consciously, allow these everyday experiences of life to ‘mould’ us and thus grow closer to Jesus. As our target, we can aim at the fruits of the Spirit, ‘Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control’. All these are real attributes of God within us, and, personally speaking, I would find the last one quite a challenge, still. We cannot attain, or obtain, these gifts without training ourselves, and this training is actually a gift from God. One can have fun training in worldly success; the musician might enjoy music-making; the athlete might enjoy the keeping fit; for us, especially, our ‘spiritual’ training is to make us grow in union with our greatest friend, who is also our spouse.
This training, using the ordinary events of life, is best done in two ways. Firstly, try to find some other companions who will support and help you. This may be from Church, from those you know and with whom you can chat and discuss – not necessarily, directly, about the plan to let the fruits of the Spirit be what you aim for – but support, as a fellow parishioner, on the way to union with God. It may be as simple as joining friends for coffee after Sunday’s 9.30am Mass; it may be as part of a group in Church, the Cleaners, the Choir, the Folk Group, the KSC, the Catenians or whatever. Secondly, aim to live the present moment well, and in that present moment, do your best to live out what that moment demands, driving the car, cooking the tea, talking to a colleague, listening to the children, praying, or whatever the demands of the day call you to do. In this way we will not be ‘vague’ and ‘wishy-washy’ about this strenuous spiritual training, but it will amount to something real, and active, in the practical daily details of life.
In Lent, I think it behoves us to be willing to take on ‘extra’ things to help us to ‘change’ and to ‘grow’ – always in one direction – towards God, our Father. Where, then, do we choose to be in forty days’ time, when Holy Week comes, when we share with Jesus that ‘culmination’ of the earthly life? St. John’s Gospel calls it the ‘glorification’ of Jesus, when he was raised up on the Cross, with all its ghastly horror – and evil personified! Perhaps, in different ways, we may be called by God to experience something like that. Clearly, people do go through such sufferings, as recent news of the horrors of the Libyan ‘civil war’ brings to our notice. Only recently, an elderly lady, still cheerful despite the intense pain of her cancer, pointed out that we have nothing to complain about, compared with what those Libyans are going through. That lady is certainly advanced in her life of union with God. Would we not, in forty days’ time, prefer to be more fully ‘human’, as a result of being more ‘fully tuned in’ to our ‘real’ self – a self made in the image and likeness of God?
Below is a picture of the altar frontal, in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, that we use in Lent. It shows the cross almost ‘alive’ as a person. It is bending down over the repentant sinner and seems to be saying: “Do not worry; do not take yourself too seriously; come into the arms of the Love that Jesus has for you and be certain that He will support you in that profound transformation and conversion that God wants for you.”
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Yes, Lent can be joyful! It may be about experiencing something difficult and painful; it may be about denying ourselves something we enjoy; it may be we do not do something we like, in order to spend time with God; it may be about reading, in a meditative way from scripture, or praying; it may be about denying ourselves some pleasure; it may be about attending an extra Mass, because our faith teaches us that the Eucharist enjoins both living the way of Jesus, in our daily lives, and the source of strength to live his way. The beauty of it is that, having overcome the painful processes, having denied ourselves for Jesus, or having ‘gone that extra mile’ for Him, the result is great joy.
Lent is not necessarily linked with misery, for that, essentially, is ‘negative’ thinking. But, on the positive side, joy can be the culmination of doing that little bit more for Jesus.
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