Christian Formation
A Holy Lent
by The Rev. Canon Allisyn Thomas
When I was a little girl my parent used to have me "give something up" for Lent, such as cookies or candy. That was all well and good except I did not know what Lent was or why I had to give something up. It apparently had something to do with Jesus, although it did not make much sense that Jesus cared if I ate cookies, but I went along, figuring it would somehow make me more holy. Anyway, it all ended on Easter Sunday, so I could still eat all the chocolate that seemed to be around on that most holy of days.
It was not until many years later that I learned that Lent, beginning with Ash Wednesday, is the forty days before Easter that Christians set aside to remember the time Jesus spent in the desert right after he was baptized by John, and to take stock of their lives and walk with God. It is a penitential season, often a quieter season, and the whole reason to give something up, or take on something, such as a new spiritual discipline, is to help remind ourselves of our dependence on God and where we might fall short. It truly is a time to be set aside and not engage in business as usual but rather business as it can be.
This year at the Cathedral, we will have several offerings to help people keep a holy Lent in their own way. On February 21, Ash Wednesday, we will have three services in which people may come for the imposition of Ashes: 7:30 am in the Chapel (imposition of ashes only); noon (with Bishop Mathes presiding) and 7:00 pm. There will be holy Eucharist at all of those services. Also on Ash Wednesday, the Women's Dinner Group will have a simple supper and a presentation by The Rev. Canon Lee Teed on Lent, which will conclude before 7:00 pm so that those present may go to the service.
On Friday evenings beginning February 23 at 6:00, there will be Stations of the Cross said in the Cathedral. This practice will continue until March 30, when there will be a special dramatic Stations of the Cross. Stations of the Cross, for those of you who are not familiar with this practice, is a procession in which a reader leads people to stations positioned throughout the Cathedral, each of which represents a stage of Jesus's final walk to Golgotha, where he was crucified. It is a solemn rite that reminds us of the lengths to which Jesus went out of his great love for us.
Then, beginning April 1, Palm Sunday, we move into Holy Week as we go deeply into the true meaning of Easter.
As we stand at the beginning of the Lenten season, and we begin to pray about and wonder how we can best keep a holy Lent, let me offer perhaps the best explanation I have ever heard of Lent. It comes from theologian and author Frederick Buechner, who wrote the following about Lent in his book, Whistling in the Dark, A Doubter's Dictionary:
In many cultures there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth
of each year's income to some holy use. For Christians, to
observe the forty days of Lent is to do the same thing with
roughly a tenth of each year's days. After being baptized by
John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness
where he spent forty days asking himself the question of what
it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians are supposed to
ask one way or another what it means to be themselves.
Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter's Dictionary
(New York: Harper San Francisco, 1993), p. 82.
