Lent, as we know it, began in the early centuries of the Church as a time of special preparation for new converts to Christianity who were to be baptised on Holy Saturday and receive Holy Communion at the Easter Vigil. It is why catechumens and candidates in many of our parishes are beginning their final preparation for reception into full communion with the Catholic Church this Eastertide. We should pray for them. Lent was also a time for the reconciliation of those Christians who, in time of persecution, had denied their faith or had committed some other public crime which separated them from the Church. The ceremony of reconciliation took place on Maundy Thursday. The official prayers and readings for Lent still show the origins of Lent as a time of preparation for Baptism and of reconciliation of sinners. These sinners began Lent by wearing ashes on their heads, a sign of repentance. I hope that, if you possibly can, you will participate in the Mass of Ash Wednesday, receiving the ashes on your foreheads as a sign that we too are sinners and in need o~repentance. How then can we mark these 40 days of Lent? What is it that the Church recommends us to do as we prepare for Holy Week and Eastertide? It can be summed up in three words - prayer, fasting and alms-giving.
Lent should be a time when we are ever more attentive to the Word of God and to prayer. How should you pray? In the Gospel read on Ash Wednesday Jesus says, "When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret" (Matt. 6.6). Of course, Jesus is speaking directly to people who live in villages and still have the opportunity of withdrawing in such a way. But his words apply to every one of us. Each disciple of Christ must seek out that secret place, a place where God can reveal the love that he has for all his children and where each of us, in complete honesty, can be liberated and stripped of all masks and pretence. ·Wherever you are, whatever the conditions of your life, even if you are in a hospital ward, or a cramped apartment, or travelling on the underground, or standing in the middle of a pressing crowd, you have the possibility of finding that 'interior room' where you can go and close the door. You will say,'That's not easy, I pray better when I am on my knees, or when I am walking in the mountains where there are no other human beings. But I say to you that you can pray even when you are in the midst of other people. There are ways of creating that interior solitude where our desire to be in communion with God can be proved by our wishing to pray, our wanting to pray.
Pray every day. Pray in secret - at least pray in the morning and in the evening. In the morning when you wake up, instead of rushing about frantically so as not to be late, take a moment, however brief, to praise the coming day and your awakening to it. Accept these first moments of the day as a kind of resurrection with Christ, a rising up with him to newness of life. And in the evening remember the prayer of Jesus before his death, "Father into your hands I commend my spirit". We abandon ourselves to God.
While talking about prayer I would like to suggest that each one of you makes sure that you read and meditate on some passage from Scripture, if possible every day. Read a passage of the Gospel and, if you manage to obtain the readings for every day in Lent, the Church provides you with wonderful readings from the Epistles and Gospels which enable you to reflect on your own baptism, on your own communion with Christ and his invitation to follow him.
Secondly, the Church recommends that we fast. Today, fasting is imposed only on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. But there is a more general form of fasting which I think is extremely important, and it has to do with self-discipline. Fasting is recommended because when we discipline ourselves we are helping to fast from wrong-doing, which is much more important than fasting from food. How difficult it is for each one of us to avoid the occasions of sin - to say 'no' to ourselves. How easy to fall into casual habits and be enticed by the offerings of our consumer, pleasure-ridden age and thus become unable to hear the voice of God. There is also a fasting of the mind, a fasting from walking along those dark, inner paths of self-pity, of blaming others, of relishing the failures -of others, of nursing grievances. That kind of fasting enables us to give thanks to God for everything we have enjoyed in our lives and in each day.
The third invitation of the Church is for alms-giving. I am not sure 'almsgiving' is the right word because it implies giving of our plenty to the less fortunate. I think alms-giving is linked with prayer. If we pray genuinely, then the Spirit of God, the Spirit of tenderness and compassion will take hold of us and we will begin to feel at one, especially with those who are less fortunate than ourselves. So alms-giving includes not only caring for the sick and the homeless, but also, perhaps, helps to uproot the causes of hunger and homelessness, and to take a real and personal part in the New Covenant with the Poor.
Traditionally, then, Lent is a time of prayer, fasting and alms-giving. Indeed, when I became a bishop I was told that I ought to remind the people of my diocese every Lent, and I quote, "Every bishop should encourage the faithful to participate in an ever more intense and fruitful way in the Lenten liturgy and in penitential celebrations. They are to be clearly reminded that both according to law and tradition they should approach the Sacrament of Penance during this season so that with purified hearts they may participate in the Paschal Mystery. I know that the priests of the diocese will be devoting themselves to the ministry of reconciliation and provide sufficient time for all of you to avail yourselves of this sacrament. My prayer will be that you will all avail yourselves of this opportunity during the Lenten season to pray, to fast, to give alms, to receive the sacrament of reconciliation and so resurrection
