Word of the Week

1st Sunday in Lent

Lent: Langtina (O.E.): meaning “long day”, behind it stands a Latin term that conveys “springtime.”

“Lent is the liturgical season of forty days which begins with Ash Wednesday and ends with the celebration of the Paschal Mystery...Lent is the primary penitential season on the Church’s liturgical year, reflecting into the forty days Jesus spent in the desert in fasting, and prayer” (CCC Glossary, 886). 

The word Lent itself is unseen in Sacred Scripture, yet the spirit and essence of the penitential season is captured throughout the synoptic Gospels in the episode of the Temptation of Jesus in the Desert for forty days (Mk.1:12-13; Lk.4:1-12; Mt.4:1-11). Jesus’ temptation reveals the way in which the Son of God is Messiah, contrary to the way Satan proposes to him and the way men wish to attribute to him. This is why Christ vanquishes the Tempter for us: “For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sinning” (Heb.4.15). In the synoptic accounts of the Temptation of Jesus, Christ faces similar trials to that of Adam and the nation of Israel in the OT. The wild beast tempted Adam as the nation of Israel was tempted in the wilderness by the devil for forty years. Christ, as the new Adam (Rom.5:14), overcomes the temptation of the devil in the wilderness to restore the race of man and unite the nation of Israel under the Apostolic Church. He accomplishes this plan of atonement through prayer, penance and filial obedience. By the solemn forty days of Lent, the Church as the new Israel unites herself annually to the mystery of Jesus in the desert and the probationary period of fasting and trial (Hahn and Minch, 18). 
 
The truest sense of the word Lent offers insight into the deeper meaning of our Christian journey during this season of repentance. The Church, as the people of God, must experience the ‘long day’, or long season of Lent, to come to know the springtime of the Resurrection. We often associate Lent with a time of sacrifice or a time “to give something up”, which is true, but we must always remember that if we are going to be united to the mystery of Christ and his forty days of temptation, our sacrifice ought to be rooted in the spirit of prayer. Remember, Jesus was “led by the Holy Spirit into the desert” (Lk.4.1). Therefore, we ought to be ‘led by the Holy Spirit into the desert’ that our fasting and almsgiving may have redemptive value.

By way of postscript, I encourage all readers of this teaching bulletin to examine a deeper question concerning Lent, the question of needs verses wants. Our sacrifices ought to crystallize for us the clear distinction between what we need against what we want. Far too often, we get these two material realities backwards and it leads to materialism and a regression in the spiritual life. Materials are needed in this life and are a blessing from God, but a lack of the cardinal virtue of temperance, and they (material goods) become an idol of sorts that leads us into a deeper trap of consumerism.

“Lent must be kept not only by avoiding bodily impurity but also by avoiding errors of thought and faith.”

-- St. Leo the Great

Primary Texts Consulted

•  Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
•  Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.
• Hahn, Scott and Minch , Curtis. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: The Gospel of Mark , RSV, 2nd ed. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2001.

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