Ash Wednesday inaugurates a new season of Lent. Lent can become an anecdote, a missed opportunity, if we do not become very intentional about it. The forty days of Lent are an invitation to change.
When Jesus calls us to “metanoia” he is not only calling us to “repent” (as we will hear when a cross of ashes is drawn on our foreheads), but also to change. Metanoia means change, change of heart, conversion (if you prefer a more religious language.) Repentance seems to be only one step in the process of change, and it connects directly with sin when we may be asked to change things that are not necessarily sinful. Repentance also seems to reflect about the past, a past action, and change is a reference to a hopeful future.
Change is difficult, we know. It is especially difficult if we do not count on God’s grace and we only trust our human power. To help us further, the Church gives us the three Lenten observances. They are wonderful tools to begin and develop our own metanoia. They come directly from the gospel that we read today: prayer, fasting, and giving. We need to be intentional about these three practices if we want them to be fruitful.
The kind of prayer described in the gospel today is a silent, individual prayer. It is not a prayer of intercession, when we ask for something; or a prayer based on formulas that we all know. It is a prayer of quieting ourselves and our minds to be able to listen to what God is trying to communicate to us. We will have to be intentional about it, find a time and a place, and enter into a rhythm during the season.
Fasting is a symbol of an attitude, and out of the three observances, the one we may misunderstand the most. Fasting begins with the realization that we do not need that much, that we have to empty ourselves of the obsession with the self and our perceived needs. If we are just about the dry observance of the rule, fasting only applies to two days during the season: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. But fasting applies to the whole season. We need less of everything. We need a radical emptying of our own needs, so we make room for God and others.
Fasting in modern times has been adapted into some “Lenten give-up.” It may be good, especially if we see it just as a symbol of a deeper change (I read some place that Lent should be less about giving up and more about giving out!) It is certainly not about “giving up something and then patting ourselves on the back for our self-control” (as a friend of mine put it).
Fasting is connected with the last Lenten observance. The origin of (alms)giving is that we save money with what we give up in material terms (the chocolate, for instance) and then we give this money to the poor. So our giving up is not self-serving; our sacrifice does improve someone else beyond ourselves. There is a lot of change needed in the way we consider and treat the poor, and we may be far from trusting God’s promise that when we give sacrificially we receive all kinds of blessings. We need change in the way we give, also—and more about that during Lent.
A cross of ashes will be stamped on our foreheads as a sign of our willingness to enter into this season of transformation. We prepare ourselves for the upcoming celebration of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ, by praying for God’s grace to transform us into individuals more like the Jesus who lived and died for us. Happy Lent!!
